


the sweet interminable spectacle

by mochroimanam



Series: the sweet interminable spectacle verse [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Casually Trans Characters, Demons, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Excessive Amounts of Hand Holding, Found Family, Gen, Magic, Multi, OT5 Friendship, PTSD, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Character Death, Post-Canon, Road Trips, Soul-Searching
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 20:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5798608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mochroimanam/pseuds/mochroimanam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Our line sustained a lot of damage when - with everything that happened yesterday.” Adam traces the line that flows perpendicular across the state, extending it westward. “It set off a kind of chain reaction that’s made it leaky in a lot more places than just Henrietta. If we want the power of the line back, I’m going to have to travel to fix it.” </i>
  <br/>
  <i>The power of the line back. Blue looks up at Adam sharply, hope swelling in her chest. “You mean - Noah? We can get Noah back?”</i>
  <br/>
  <i>“That’s the plan,” Gansey says, resting his hand lightly over her fingers, which are still clutching his shoulder. The fervent light filling his eyes makes sense to her now. This is Gansey without Glendower. This is Gansey with a new, even more desperate quest.</i>
</p><p>Or; Post TRK, the Raven Gang goes on a Feels Trip. I mean a Road Trip. Sure.<br/>NOTE: written pre-TRK, thus, is not TRK compliant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pvwork](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pvwork/gifts).



> Note for readers post-April 2016 - this was written before The Raven King came out. I'm fully aware that TRK is going to Joss everything that happens in this fic, which is part of the reason the Final Events of That Book are very vague in this (you'll find out more in subsequent chapters). As they say in France, le fuck it.

_Back of his footsteps as he journeyed fell_  
_Range after range; ahead blue hills emerged._  
_Before him tireless to applaud it surged  
_ _The sweet interminable spectacle._

_And like the west behind a sundown sea_  
_Shone the past joys his memory retraced,_  
_And bright as the blue east he always faced  
_ _Beckoned the loves and joys that were to be._

 _The Wanderer_ by Alan Seeger

~

When Blue thinks about the _them_ Before and the _them_ After, it’s hard to pick out the differences. But Gansey’s death and subsequent return leaves a hole wrenched in time that she can see through like a two-way mirror, and the differences are everything, obvious in the transmuted energy between the four of them with their missing fifth piece. Gansey's death seems to have torn away the last of the vestiges of the walls between them all, which had been in crumbling ruins for months anyway. Since that very first trip into Cabeswater, if Blue’s being honest with herself.

They’re more careful with each other now, grief and fear leaving them brittle and horribly aware of their own frailty. But at the same time, they’re less careful. Less frightened of how much they mean to each other. Less afraid to act. They’re too well-acquainted with how much can be lost in an instant not to squeeze all the juice out of every second together that they have left.

The slow burn of the thing that had been singeing their hearts for months as they all grew closer suddenly explodes, as obvious as the streak of a comet bursting the night sky into furious brightness. Blue feels like she can see everything clearly for the first time, between Gansey and Adam and Gansey and Ronan and Ronan and Adam and between all three of them and her, and the afterimage doesn’t seem to fade as they move into a new summer together. 

It’s wonderful and terrifying and radiant, and more than anything, it makes Blue miss Noah even more fiercely.


	2. flooded with gold

In the After, Blue experiences time in brief skipping scenes, glimpses of light and then darkness, her mind like a broken projector.

Adam and Maura standing with their heads bent together in the foyer, speaking too quietly for Blue to hear. Calla shining a penlight into Ronan’s bloodshot eyes in the kitchen as he tries disjointedly to bat her away. Gansey sitting at the table, face a complex puzzle that hasn’t been put back together quite yet, his palm still fused to Blue’s.

Blue, overtaxed with emotion, finally passes out at the kitchen table with her head pressed to her folded arm as her relatives bustle around her, murmuring quietly and tending to shallow scrapes and bruises. When Blue resurfaces half an hour later with visions of blood and earthquakes clouding her mind, she has to fling her arms around Gansey to feel his warm wholeness in order to stop shaking again. Maura comes around the table to press a mug of tea into her hand, running gentle fingers through Blue’s chaotic mess of hair and pulling free the leaves and twigs that are still trapped in it.

They’re all exhausted. Calla declares that Ronan needs to rest before they can assess how much psychic damage he may have sustained in the pulse of energy that shook the forest. Ronan looks to Gansey, because he’s Ronan, and Blue follows his gaze, blinking away tears for what feels like the hundredth time today.

Gansey’s eyes are strange in the shadows that the fading light of sunset has left strung throughout the kitchen. He hasn’t spoken since asking about Noah before they left Cabeswater, and Blue tightens her fingers around his with a jolt of panic that makes her tired heart race. She hadn’t had time to process anything past the aching relief of his pulse restarting, but what if he’s - _different_? Where was he in that hour when his body had been nothing but a cold shell?

But when Gansey speaks, it’s with the same steady assurance that makes him their centering compass, time and time again. “Is it alright if we stay here? All of us, I mean.” He doesn’t elaborate or offer an explanation behind the question, but he doesn’t really need to. None of them want to let each other out of their sight.

“Of course,” Maura says, her hand still resting comfortingly against the fabric of Blue’s sweater. “As long as it’s alright with Blue.” Blue’s nodding even before she finishes speaking.

“Thank you,” Gansey says, looking to Adam. “One of us can take the couch, and -”

“No,” Blue says hoarsely. “There’s space in my room.”

There’s not really space in her room. There’s definitely not space in her tiny single bed for more than just her. But with Adam’s wordless help, she shoves some furniture into the closet and spreads a layer of pillows, thick quilts, and soft blankets that the other women of the house supply on the floor. Showers are offered and declined, as they can all barely stand as it is, and one by one they collapse into the floor nest before the sun has even finished setting.

Blue tucks her head under Gansey’s arm, her cheek on his chest, and his broad hand draws comforting lines down the length of her spine. Ronan’s opposite Blue, unabashedly curled against Gansey’s other side, one hand resting over Gansey’s heart a few inches from Blue’s face. Adam lies behind Ronan on his back, looking up at the ceiling, but when Blue reaches out to him, he gives her a tired smile and clasps his hand in hers. Blue finds herself leaking tears again, and shuts her eyes tightly, inhaling the warm scent of Gansey’s living skin, all crushed oak leaves and the heat of summer. 

All that’s missing is Noah.

~

Blue wakes up with a crick in her neck and a disgusting taste in her mouth. The pale watery light of morning illuminates Ronan sprawled out next to her, one arm flung behind his head, looking utterly dead to the world. Blue has a small moment of panic - death has become too close, too real in the last few weeks - but then she sees Ronan’s chest moving with his breath, and she can breathe again too.

She extracts herself from the tangle of blankets, experiencing another moment of shuddery panic when she wonders how much of her memory of the events of the day before can be trusted. The tangible anguish that had smothered them all when Gansey had fallen is the clearest, most pressing memory, even more adamant than the bone-melting relief when he’d opened his eyes again, and Blue’s legs shake as she descends the stairs, wondering if she’d dreamt Gansey’s reawakening. Not all of it can have been real, can it? Maybe everything after the earthquake had been a desperate fever dream spurred on by grief. 

But as she nears the kitchen, she’s greeted by the smell of frying bacon and the sound of Gansey’s voice chattering excitedly. Blue has to stand in the doorway for a moment to just take in the scene.

“And then there’s New Mexico!” Gansey’s saying, gesturing animatedly with a spatula. He’s standing by a hissing frying pan on the stove, and Calla, who looks like she’s about to start hissing herself, is next to him. “You wouldn’t believe the EMF readings. I don’t doubt we could easily spend a week just in Santa Fe finding all the places it’s splitting off energy.”

Adam’s sitting at the kitchen table, a huge paper map of the United States spread in front of him. He nods, circling Santa Fe with a ballpoint pen. “What about Utah? Isn’t there some kind of epicenter – ”

“Yes!” Gansey bursts out, and then looks momentarily confused as Calla growls and shoves him out of the way. 

“You’re going to burn it all if you keep that up,” Calla snaps. “And like hell am I letting you burn my bacon. Sit down.” She doesn’t leave room for argument, and Gansey, a little ruffled, sits across from Adam at the table. 

“It’s called the goddess vortex,” Gansey continues, running a finger over the map lovingly. “The actual intersection is located in the Salt Lake just east of Antelope Island.”

It’s all so normal and domestic and mundane; so drastically different from the horror of the previous day. Adam and Gansey still haven’t noticed Blue in the doorway, and she ducks back into the shadow of the hall, needing a moment to breathe and compose herself. When she enters the kitchen a few minutes later, Calla gives her a knowing look that manages to make her feel younger and much, much older than she is at the same time. 

“What’s all this?” Blue asks, and as Gansey’s attention snaps to her, he smiles brightly. It’s a little bit like being blinded by the sun, and Blue can’t help but go to his side, squeezing his shoulder to remind herself he’s really here. 

Gansey points enthusiastically at the map like he drew it up himself. “Repairing the ley line!” 

Blue looks down at it, uncomprehending. “Like Adam’s been doing since last summer, you mean?”

“Much bigger than that,” Adam answers, giving Blue a small smile as he looks up from the arc he’d been tracing across Utah with the pen. He uses the pen to point at Virginia, outlining the curving familiar lines of the triangle of energy that enclose Cabeswater. “Our line sustained a lot of damage when - with everything that happened yesterday.” Adam traces the line that flows perpendicular across the state, extending it westward. “It set off a kind of chain reaction that’s made it leaky in a lot more places than just Henrietta. If we want the power of the line back, I’m going to have to travel to fix it.” 

_The power of the line back_. Blue looks up at Adam sharply, hope swelling in her chest. “You mean - Noah? We can get Noah back?”

“That’s the plan,” Gansey says, resting his hand lightly over her fingers, which are still clutching his shoulder. The fervent light filling his eyes makes sense to her now. This is Gansey without Glendower. This is Gansey with a new, even more desperate quest.

“Well, shit,” Ronan says from the doorway, and they all look up in surprise. He walks into the kitchen, steals a piece of bacon from the plate Calla’s been dropping them on, and sprawls into the chair next to Adam’s. Blue doesn’t miss the way his eyes rake over Gansey, as if he needs to validate the fact that he’s still breathing just as much as Blue had. “When do we leave?”

~

They have a few weeks left in the semester - and God, does it feel weird to go back to something as useless and mundane as high school after everything that’s happened - which is good, because that’s about the length of time it takes to convince Maura to let Blue go.

“It’s a glorified road trip,” Maura says, setting her glass of cranberry juice down on the table of the reading room a little harder than necessary. Blue watches as a few drops of red spatter the tablecloth, and she wipes at them with a finger. This is their third argument this week.

“It’s for the _ley line_ ,” Blue protests, crossing her arms. “You do like being able to run your business, don’t you?” 

Everyone in the house has been feeling the effects of the draining line. Orla’s had to put the hotline completely on hold several days in a row, refusing to give fragmented predictions, and Jimi’s been in bed with a splitting migraine since she’d attempted to scry that morning. Calla has been storming about the house even more violently than usual, and Maura’s been sitting in the reading room for hours at a time, burning constant mixtures of rosemary and celery, orris root and palo santo, sandalwood and laurel, shuffling her tarot deck over and over again.

“I don’t disagree that it needs to be fixed,” Maura says irritatedly, patience snapping before it ever really got the chance to exist. “But Gansey and Adam are perfectly capable of doing that without involving you.” 

Blue glowers. “I’m their mirror. I can help Adam work the energy twice as quickly, and you know it. They may not _need_ me, but I’ll help the process along.” She tries keep the hurt from her voice, but she’s about as successful at concealing her feelings from her mother as she is at ballet. 

“Oh, Blue,” Maura sighs, spreading the cards and flipping a card at random on the table. _The Fool_. “If you think I’m saying that you’re not special enough to go with them, you’re listening to the wrong voice in that head of yours.” She reaches out, tucking a bit of Blue’s hair behind her ear. There’s a sadness in her eyes that runs so deep that it shakes Blue, making her own grief swirl up like leaves tossed by the wind. “I won’t be able to bear losing you too, Blue. There’s already been too many close calls as it is.”

Blue swallows past the tightness in her throat, looking down at the table. Maura’s soft brown hands transform into Persephone’s in her mind, which were thin and pale enough to reflect the candlelight against the dark embroidery of the tablecloth. “I know, Mom.” She knows too well. She knows because she keeps waking up from nightmares where Gansey is dead again; nightmares where she loses Maura, and Calla, and Adam, and Ronan, and everyone else she holds dear to her heart. “But this is something that I have to do.” She runs her fingers over the spread out deck, tapping the one that feels right to her, which Maura flips over. 

_The Chariot._

Maura lets out a long, heavy sigh, and rubs at her eyes. Calla comes into the room, much more quietly than the way she’s usually violently blowing into rooms, and stands behind Maura’s chair, resting her hands on Maura’s shoulders. “Set aside that fear, and look at your daughter, Maura,” Calla says, and Maura’s dark eyes flick up to Blue’s matching set. Blue tries to look brave, and strong, and everything else she doesn’t really feel when she thinks about the future. She thinks about her boys, and about getting Noah back, and it’s easier to straighten her spine, to meet her mother’s gaze with fierce determination. 

“I know this is the right decision,” Blue says quietly. She gathers up the deck from the table and gives it a shuffle, the movement all habit and muscle memory. A card drops out of the middle of the deck, and all three of them look down at it. 

_Strength._

Maura purses her lips, fixing Blue with another hard gaze. Then she sighs, slumping in the chair a little, Calla’s hands massaging the tense knots of her shoulders. “You’re going to buy a cell phone,” Maura says sternly, “And you’re going to call me _twice a day_ to check in, Blue Sargent, do you hear me?” 

Blue gets up quickly enough that she nearly knocks her chair backward and swoops around the table to pull her mother into a hard hug.

~

In between studying for finals and ignoring the impending graduation ceremonies that all of them are dreading, plans are made and supplies are bought and arguments are had until suddenly it’s the first weekend in June and they’ve made it out of high school alive and they’re packing the car and it’s _actually happening_.

It had taken a lot of convincing for Gansey to be willing to leave the Pig behind. Adam had patiently explained that even if he reworked the engine to the top of its game beforehand, the likelihood of the Camaro giving up the ghost and leaving them stranded somewhere in Iowa was a little too high to chance. Plus, Ronan had adamantly refused to take a car that didn’t have decent air conditioning, and Blue had reasoned that they needed something with enough room for all their food and camping supplies, as well as enough space for them to be confined in for hours at a time without killing each other. 

They’d ended up borrowing (or possibly renting, or possibly Gansey bought it outright, Blue’s been trying not to think about it too much) a cherry-colored supposedly environmentally-friendly SUV from some friend-of-the-Ganseys’ Chevrolet dealership owner. (“Thirty-two MPG on the highway,” Gansey had told them proudly, as they’d all stared at the sleek new machine sitting in the lot at Monmouth. “How much does the Pig get?” Blue had asked, curious. Gansey had hemmed and hawwed and stalled until Adam answered “About thirteen,” which had sent Blue into a tirade about carbon emissions and the disappearing rainforest and the ozone layer that had lasted three days.)

The funding for the trip had been a point of contention as well, although much less of one then it might’ve been in the past. Blue and Adam had both insisted on chipping in for the cost of gas, food, and lodging, despite Gansey’s hesitant offer to foot the bill, and Adam and Blue had worked out a budget plan together that involved a lot more camping and peanut butter sandwiches than motel stays and diner trips.

Ever since Adam had been awarded a full scholarship to Princeton, some of the perpetual tension had eased from his shoulders, and he’d even dropped one of his jobs in his last semester. He’d also accepted a ley line “research grant” from Roger Malory, after a lot of back and forth negotiation, in exchange for the promise of a full report on the line’s energy and focal points everywhere they travel.

With the logistics out of the way, and a full hour of goodbyes and threats and extra snacks thrust upon them at 300 Fox Way, it finally comes time to pile into the SUV. Oddly enough, Gansey seems to be the most worried that they’re forgetting something important, which Blue maybe thinks has to do with the fact that he’s still not convinced they actually all really want to go with him. After he checks the supply list and the car’s well-being for the third time while still sitting in the driveway, Ronan finally rolls his eyes and threatens to kick Gansey out of the driver’s seat, and then they all start yelling “Excelsior, Gansey!”, or “Excelsior, motherfucker!” in Ronan’s case, until Gansey finally grins sheepishly and starts the engine. 

Then they’re on the road, actually _going_ , windows down and music blaring and Ronan and Adam already bickering and Gansey telling Blue excitedly about Alfred Watkins coining the term ley in 1921, and buoyant energy at the prospect of adventure and summer and being alive together sweeps through all of them. Blue hijacks the radio and puts on _Bohemian Rhapsody_ , and they cruise out of Henrietta singing at the top of their lungs.


	3. and the great roads commence

When Blue was in seventh grade, she’d gone through a several month period where she’d devoured every book on Greek mythology she could find in the library. Although many of the myths had stoked the fire of her burgeoning feminist rage (“Zeus was a _rapist_ , Mom! How were all the other gods _okay_ with that?”), she got swept up in the poetry and history of the stories, and delighted in giving Persephone pomegranates and reciting to Calla the origin of the flower that was her namesake.

The story of Theseus and the Minotaur was one of her favorites. She felt a lot of empathy for the Minotaur - sometimes her overstuffed house felt like a maze she was lost in, too - and she’d taken to carrying a ball of twine in her backpack with her, just in case she ever needed to find her way back somewhere. Now, as they approach the state line, she imagines Ariadne’s red thread in her hands, spinning quickly as it unspools, winding a trail along the highway behind them. 

“‘Welcome to West Virginia, Wild and Wonderful,’” Gansey reads grandly, and Ronan whoops. Blue closes her eyes as she leaves Virginia for the first time in her life, half expecting to feel the difference as something physical in her bones as she passes from the known into the uncertain. But the only thing she feels is the imaginary tug of the thread, pulling at her heart now instead of her hands.

When she’s ready, she’ll be able to find her way back home. For now, though, she opens her eyes and looks out at the road ahead.

~

“Where’s our first pit stop gonna be?” Blue asks, without looking up from the knot of yarn she’s slowly working on untangling. Gansey and Adam are in the front, Gansey driving, Adam glancing between the folded up map of the U.S. and the tarot cards spread in his lap, occasionally jotting down a note to himself. 

“I’m not totally sure,” Adam admits. Their tentative plan is to follow the disturbed line as best they can via major highways, with Adam giving as much direction as he’s able to by listening to the energy bending and shifting within him. 

Ronan’s slumped in the back next to Blue, one bent leg threatening to invade her space, but not quite able to across the wide backseat. “I want a Slurpee,” he announces. “So it had better be somewhere with a 7/11.”

Blue wrinkles her nose. “Why not just inject syrup straight into your veins?”

Ronan ignores her, kicking the back of Gansey’s seat. “Pass the cheese thingies.” 

Gansey adjusts the rearview, presumably so he can see the large toddler in the backseat better. “Are you going to be a brat the whole way?” 

“Yes,” Ronan replies brazenly, and Adam snorts and tosses the bag of cheese curls back to him. Blue shakes her head with a hidden smile, recognizing the quiet contentment underlying the interaction. Leaving Aglionby behind forever seems to have sucked some of the chaotic energy from Ronan’s veins, and although his leg still jiggles wildly against the seat, his expression is loose and easy and brighter than Blue’s used to from him. _He’s happy_ , Blue thinks, and the realization makes warmth curl in her stomach. Aside from Noah’s absence, which is a burden they seem to pass among themselves, taking turns bearing the ache of it, there’s a quiet relief they seem to all feel.

Ronan catches her looking at him, and cocks an eyebrow. There’s a surprising lack of caustic remark as he regards her, and Blue shakes her head a little in response and goes back to the frustrating tangle of her yarn. Ronan’s hand reaches over and snatches the bundle out of her hands, and she opens her mouth, ready to snap at him. But as she watches, his fingers nimbly tease apart the knot she’s been working on for 15 minutes as easily as untying a shoelace, and the words die in her mouth.

“You clearly suck at this,” he says dismissively. Blue hides another smile and looks out the window, sliding down a little in her seat and leaning her head on the glass. When Ronan hands the yarn back to her, it’s doubled neatly around itself and wrapped into a tidy skein, and Blue’s too surprised to even make fun of him.

~

The first day, they stop twice, once in the forested mountains that make up the border between Virginia and West Virginia, and then not again until the outskirts of Cincinnati. Both times, they don’t have to hike too far from the car before Adam is able to make the adjustments needed to the damaged line, which is almost a little disappointing. 

Blue takes in the subtle changes to the landscape around them with hungry eyes. It’s not so much that West Virginia and Ohio look different from Virginia. The lattice bridges over the green twisting rivers and highways lined with lush oaks and spruces are similar enough to home to not be remarkable, although they are beautiful. But as they travel further west, the land starts to _feel_ different beneath the wheels. When they stop the second time, Blue takes off her shoes to walk on the unfamiliar dirt, and takes in great breaths until her lungs are heavy with summer air and possibility.

She feels like an adventurer, an explorer; she feels _important_ , standing behind Adam and placing her hands on his shoulders to help him focus as he gathers a handful of small branches from a dry riverbed. Ronan leans against the trunk of an old twisted oak, looking up into the boughs, and Gansey moves stones as Adam directs him to, until Adam sits back on his heels with a satisfied sigh and tells them they can move on.

~

Watching Gansey attempt to set up a tent is one of the funnier things Blue has seen in her life. He’d insisted he could get it started while the rest of them unpacked and got a fire going, but here they are twenty minutes later, standing in a semi-circle around a persistently flat pile of canvas and zippers. 

“I take it you haven’t done this before,” Blue comments, taking a sip from her water bottle as Gansey stares helplessly down at a handful of tangled fiberglass poles. “I thought you said you’d been camping?”

“In climate controlled cabins,” Ronan corrects, stealing the poles from Gansey and joining them together efficiently. “With plumbing. And cozy little cots.” 

“That definitely doesn’t count,” Adam says, holding up the edge of the tent for Ronan to thread the first length of pole through. 

“In my defense, this is a very complex tent,” Gansey says feebly, watching closely as Ronan snaps the hooks into place. Blue picks up the next corner, catching the other side of the pole Ronan’s threading through. 

Blue’s been camping a few times, in big communal clothing-optional groups of women she’s vaguely related to, so she was the one who suggested they camp across the country instead of spending the money on motels. To her surprise, everyone else was game for it; apparently Ronan and his family had gone on big camping trips every year, and Adam had briefly been a cub scout. They’d gotten a lot of their supplies from the assortment of unlabeled outdoorsy equipment in the shed in Blue’s backyard, and Adam and Gansey had made a trip to the sporting goods store to pick up the rest. The tent is a large, family-sized affair, roomy enough for them to fit all the foam pads and sleeping bags into comfortably, and Blue smiles as she hangs a flashlight lantern from the hook at the top. 

That night, somewhere in southern Ohio, they roast hot dogs over a campfire and play music on Ronan’s portable speakers and drag their sleeping bags out of the tent so they can lay together in a comfortable tangle of limbs and look up at the stars between the tree branches. Blue points out all the constellations she knows, and Adam tells them about how supernovas and black holes work, and Gansey tells them the story of the Perseids, and Ronan is strangely quiet with his head resting on Adam’s stomach. Blue gasps as a meteor shoots overhead, leaving a bright burning gash of light behind, and Gansey laughs delightedly. “Make a wish,” he murmurs to them, fingers stroking lightly through Blue’s hair. 

She keeps her wish a secret from even herself, although it feels like it’s written in the code of ever stardust-born element in her body. _Please. Bring him back too_.

~

“World’s largest horseshoe,” Gansey calls, lifting two fingers from the wheel to gesture at a sign they’re passing along the highway. “How many points am I at?”

“What the hell, Illinois,” Blue mutters, putting another tally next to Gansey’s name. “That’s twelve. It’s not fair. You’re driving, of course you see all the weird roadside attractions first.” 

“Don’t blame your literary appetite on me,” Gansey says, nodding to the battered copy of _American Gods_ that Blue’s got a finger in to hold her place. “Is this still feeling correct, Adam?” Gansey asks, glancing into the rearview to where Adam’s frowning out the window. 

“South up ahead, I think,” Adam answers. The further they’ve gotten from Cabeswater, the more difficult it’s been for Adam to find the weaker parts of the line, resulting in a slightly frustrating morning of doubling back on increasingly bumpy roads off the highway until they’d found the right spot near the Indiana border. 

“World’s largest pencil!” Blue yells suddenly and triumphantly, pointing at another billboard they’re passing, and Gansey reaches out to bump his fist with hers as she gives herself a tally mark. 

Ronan, who’s been digging around in his bag in the backseat for a few minutes, tosses a CD case up to the front of the car. “Put this on.”

Blue opens the case to find a blank CD with the words “ _why aren’t we aren’t there yet: another shitbox singalong_ ” scrawled on it in black Sharpie. “You made a roadtrip mix,” she says disbelievingly. 

Clearly looking to bypass an argument, Gansey says magnanimously, “How about I plug my phone back in, and we can - ”

“No,” Ronan, Blue, and Adam chorus together. Gansey shoots a startled and vaguely betrayed look at them. 

“Sorry, but I refuse to listen to Mumford and Sons for another three hours, Gansey,” Blue says mildly.

“A person can only take so much soulful banjoing in one lifetime,” Adam agrees. “Lynch, be honest. Is this CD you made just 27 tracks of the Murder Squash song?”

Blue glances back to see Ronan raising one hand as if he’s taking an oath. “I solemnly swear the Murder Squash song isn’t anywhere on it.” He sees Blue looking and turns his hand around, curling down every finger but the middle one. 

“Yeah, but is it music we’ll all actually _enjoy_?” Blue asks him. “I’d settle for another hundred hours of banjo wailing over your ear-bleeding EDM stuff.” 

“Put it in and find out,” Ronan dares her, and Blue rolls her eyes, then pops the CD out of the case and inserts it into the slot. 

Everyone seems to hold their breath for a minute as the stereo reads the CD. Then the first track switches on, and there’s a low-key bass beat and synthesizers and guitar, nothing harsh and heavy like Blue was expecting. After a minute she finds herself tapping her foot along to the beat. Ronan looks aloof, his version of smug, when she glances back at him.

Gansey merges onto a smaller highway heading south, and Adam pulls out his cards, shuffling and reshuffling as they pass over a wide river. Blue cracks her window, letting the scent of warm grass and growing wheat wash through the car and ruffle the short tufts of her hair. Adam gives quiet directions, which Gansey follows patiently, even when they come at the last second and he has to brake hard to make the turns.

“Okay,” Adam says with purpose, sitting up a little straighter and shuffling the Eight of Wands back into the deck. “There should be some kind of factory or power plant or something along this road, keep an eye out.” 

“Roger wilco,” Gansey replies. Blue goes back to her book, wanting to finish the chapter before they need to stop again.

Ronan’s CD continues to be low-key and lyric-less until a few tracks later, when suddenly a much more upbeat pop song comes on, with violins, trumpets, and after a few bars, a man singing. Blue raises an eyebrow and looks at the stereo, then back at Ronan, whose lips are quirked slyly. 

“Is this from the eighties?” Gansey asks, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. “It’s catchy.” 

Ronan looks from Gansey to Blue to Adam with slowly growing horror on his face. “Do... _none_ of you know this song?”

“ _Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down_ ,” the man on the radio sings, and Blue says teasingly, “Aw, this is sweet, Ronan. Is that how you feel about us?”

Ronan buries his face in his hands. “Oh, Jesus. A completely wasted Rickroll. I hate you all.” 

“What’s a Rickroll?” Adam asks blandly, but he winks at Blue, and she smothers a laugh in her knuckles.

Ronan groans and flops back against the seat. “Noah would’ve laughed his fuckin’ ass off,” he mutters. 

That makes them all go somberly quiet through the rest of the annoying song. When they park across from the lurking power plant a few minutes later and get to work in the nearby field, redirecting the energy the plant is sucking from the line, Blue holds her arms around herself, looking out over the aimlessly rippling field of wheat toward the horizon that’s hazy with the first creeping shadows of dusk. Gansey comes up next to her and after a moment, offers his open arms. Blue folds herself against his chest, the too-familiar sense of loss making her feel smaller than she is usually, like a grass seed cast to the wind. Gansey hugs her, his face pressed to the top of her head, and after a moment Adam comes up as well, pressing gently against her back and wrapping his arms around them both. Blue sighs and rubs her cheek against Gansey’s shirt, held comfortingly inside their solid warmth.

“C’mon, Lynch,” Gansey calls coaxingly, and Blue thinks, _there’s no way_.

“Oh Christ, spare me this Disney bullshit,” Ronan mutters, but then he’s coming up beside them, folding himself grudgingly into the hug as well. They’re all quiet for a minute, and then:

“Get your hand off my ass, Ronan,” Adam says dryly.

“And mine,” Gansey adds, and Blue giggles helplessly. “Actually, you can leave it, it’s nice and warm.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There actually are those World's Largest Things along the highway in Illinois. Ain't America grand.
> 
> Coming up next chapter: drama and flashbacks ahoy!


	4. to see the clouds his spirit yearned toward

Blue’s teaching Adam how to properly build a cooking fire one morning in Missouri, a process involving a lot of arguing about correct kindling and log configurations, when they hear a hoarse shout from the direction of the tent, and they jerk their heads up and look across the grassy clearing. Gansey’s sitting on a large boulder writing in his journal a little ways away, seemingly out of earshot.

“Lynch?” Adam calls, and there’s silence for a long minute. Then, gradually, Blue becomes aware of a sound slowly increasing in volume; a low, broken noise, like an animal in pain, with a pitch to it that makes her limbic system slam adrenaline through her body. With a wordless look, Blue and Adam immediately set down their fire-making implements and bolt for the tent.

Inside, Ronan is curled on his side, facing away from them, blankets a tangled curl trapped around his lower body. His sharp shoulders are hunched and shaking, and when he turns toward them, Blue is hit with the rawness of his expression; anguished and furious and broken. 

“Ronan,” Adam says firmly. He crouches at the entrance to the tent, a careful few feet between them, one hand outstretched like an offering. “You’re alright. You’re awake.” 

Ronan doesn’t seem to hear him. His fist is clenched against his chest, and as Blue watches, his palm slowly unfurls. It takes Blue a second to understand what’s clutched inside it, and when she does, the memory of grief claws at the inside of her throat hard enough that tears rush to her eyes. Ronan’s shaking fingers are cupped around a cluster of crushed mint leaves, dripping with blood. 

Recognition squeezes Blue’s heart painfully behind her ribs. There’s the awful, familiar sense of things collapsing to rubble around her, and she wants to run, to get as far away as she can from the reminder of jagged ice in her veins. 

“Get Gansey,” Adam mutters, voice low and urgent, his eyes locked on Ronan. 

Blue is already moving. She shoves her way out of the tent, panic and memory making her break into a run across the clearing. Gansey looks up, startled, as Blue’s footsteps approach him. His surprise shifts to concern the second he takes in her face, and he closes the journal with a snap and stands. 

“Ronan,” Blue breathes, and watches as Gansey’s body stiffens, his eyes going wide with fear. “He’s okay,” she says quickly. “But he’s not….okay. He needs you.” 

Gansey’s striding toward the tent before Blue has even finished speaking. He gets there ten seconds before her, but she’s close enough to hear the animalistic sob from within when Ronan sees him.

Inside the tent, Gansey has gone to his knees next to Ronan, arms wrapped tightly around him. Ronan’s hands scramble against Gansey’s chest and neck, as though he needs to physically anchor himself to Gansey’s pulse, chest heaving so hard it looks like he could break a rib with the force of his panting. He’s whispering words into Gansey’s shoulder that Blue only catches the barest edges of - _can’t_ and _please_ and _Gansey_. That’s awful enough, but it’s the look on Gansey’s face, like his heart is being torn to shreds in front of him, that makes the gathered tears finally spill from Blue’s eyes. 

“Come on.” Blue tears her gaze away from them to find Adam at her elbow. He tilts his head toward the opening of the tent, and Blue follows him outside and back to the fire.

They both stand for a while looking at the trees, quietly lost in the memory of shared grief. Blue hears another wrenching sob from the tent and her mind flinches away, the wrongness of the sound pooling inside her like mercury. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Adam’s hand stretch out to her in offering, and she takes it, twining her fingers with his and squeezing hard. She allows herself to lean into his side and feels him leaning back, warm and solid and smelling of earth and lichen, reminding her of the comforting curve of her beech tree against her back.

Ronan’s agonized face keeps flashing in her mind, the same way she sees Gansey fall, wide-eyed and empty, in her own nightmares. She shakes her head a little as if she can dislodge the image that way, and Adam squeezes her hand tightly. He takes a slow breath next to her as the wind suddenly picks up, and she looks over at him. 

In the gentle morning light, he looks almost like the Adam Parrish she met outside Nino’s only a year ago; unthreatening and perceptive and curiously elegant. But Blue can easily pick out the changes in him, too; a quiet assuredness where before there was only exhaustion, an openness where before everything was closely guarded. When he speaks, the honeyed vowels of his accent are loose and unfettered, and maybe the shame that clipped his words in the past is trivial in the face of everything he knows he can be now.

“I don’t know how I lived with the knowledge that he was going to die, Blue,” Adam says quietly, turning his head to meet her watery gaze. Another pang of unnecessary grief moves through her, making her wipe at her eyes with the inside of her shirt. “And now that I know what it’s like, I don’t know how to live with the knowledge that it could happen again. That I could lose any of you again.” The wind swells again, as if in sympathy, swirling a slurry of green and gold leaves around their ankles, and Blue bites her lip and looks down at them.

When it had all happened, Adam had been the only one of them to appear calm; years of experience allowing him to focus on action over emotion. Even after Gansey had come back to life, Adam had been the one to make decisions while Ronan and Blue and Gansey were still too shell-shocked to move, tying up the frayed ends of the broken line and getting them all back to Blue’s house in one piece. 

But Blue knows he was hardly unaffected. She’s seen the way he watches Gansey move and speak and live with unguarded relief; the way he looks at all of them as he whispers to Cabeswater, dirt-covered hands lovingly repairing broken links in the chain of energy.

Blue can’t say anything in reply, because she knows she won’t be able to control the tremor in her voice, and if she starts to _really_ cry, she’s not sure she’ll be able to stop. So instead she turns and flings her arms around Adam, tucking her face into his shoulder and letting his shirt soak up the tears that escape despite her best effort. He presses his face to her hair and they hold each other, the same way Gansey and Ronan are probably still holding each other, the same way Blue wishes she could hold Noah, the same way the energy of the line holds them all. 

Eventually, Blue and Adam separate and start to break camp, too exhausted to even think about using the camp stove to make a meal. Once the car is loaded with everything but the tent and sleeping bags, Gansey and Ronan still haven’t emerged, so they sit against a rock together, Adam’s head resting on Blue’s shoulder, her hand tracing lightly over the lines of his palm. She thinks, not for the first time, that if he asked to kiss her now she might not say no.

As she runs her fingers over his hand, she hears Persephone’s feathery voice in her head, and remembers her soft nimble fingers tracing Blue’s life line. “ _Crescents upon crescents, my little moon. Don’t forget to let yourself wane_.”

Blue smiles sadly, swallowing the salt of more tears away. “You’ve got a strong fate line,” she tells Adam, tracing the long line that runs perpendicular up the middle of his palm. “It means you’ll find balance. And take charge of your life.” 

Adam turns his palm a little more toward her, his hair brushing her cheek as he shifts his head against her shoulder. “Well, I guess one of us has to. What else?”

Blue hums, and traces where his fate line is connected to his heart line. There’s a faint ring of small circles, a chain, embedded between them. “Tensions and restrictions in your childhood,” she says, somewhat apologetically. “A long period of indecisiveness and difficulty.” 

Adam doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t pull his hand away, so Blue continues. “You’ve got a double life line,” she tells him, tracing the curve of the line that ends between his thumb and pointer finger. There’s a smaller line held within the curve of the line, and she points it out to him. “That’s called a line of protection, or an angel line. Higher powers watching over you and protecting you.” 

Adam does close his hand then, curling his fingers around Blue’s and gently opening her hand so he can see her palm. “You don’t have that one,” he murmurs, voice a little strained. 

“No,” she agrees, “But my life line _is_ very strong. See?” Adam’s fingers trace over the deep indent of the line curving across Blue’s brown palm, and Blue wonders how it’s fair that they’ve both been touched by death so many times before the age of twenty that they’ll cling to whatever promise of life they can get. 

“Do you think Ronan’s alright?” Blue asks, finally. It’s been over an hour, and he and Gansey still haven’t emerged. The day is starting to heat, and they should probably get on their way soon; but neither Adam or Blue make any move to interrupt them. 

Adam raises his head from Blue’s shoulder, and Blue catches the inscrutable expression on his face as he looks across the clearing. “I think he will be,” Adam murmurs, and Blue hears the weight of the words he doesn’t say. _I hope we all will be._

~

They don’t make it far that day. Ronan is a surly jagged hurricane, storming around and snapping at Blue and Adam any time they get too close, and so they mostly stick together, letting Gansey and Ronan take the back seat with Adam driving. It’s harder for Adam to focus on where the energy is trying to direct him while he’s driving, but Blue thinks they’ve all sort of figured out today won’t be very productive, so it’s alright. Blue had offered to drive, but Adam had taken the wheel with something like relief, and so Blue works on the fingerless gloves she’s crocheting and looks out the window as the trees passing become fewer and more far between, slowly replaced by endless fields of corn. 

When Blue glances back a few hours into the drive, Gansey’s moved to the middle seat so that he and Ronan are pressed close together. Ronan’s got his face tucked against Gansey’s shoulder, and Gansey’s resting his hand on the back of Ronan’s neck. Gansey meets Blue’s eyes, and the sorrow in his gaze is as deep and complex as the caves beneath Cabeswater. Blue has to look away after a few seconds, fingers tangling helplessly in her yarn.

~

That evening, they stop to camp in a wild walnut grove along a slow-moving stream. Adam’s got a crease in his forehead from an afternoon spent unsuccessfully trying to find the nearby source of the splintering in this part of the line, and Blue quietly offers him the bottle of Aspirin. Ronan had burst from the car as soon as it stopped moving and immediately disappeared somewhere off among the trees. 

“Calling Matthew, I think,” Gansey tells them, at Adam’s questioning glance. “Ostensibly to check on Chainsaw, but I think he might just need to hear his voice.” Blue understands that. She’s been calling Maura and Calla twice a day to check in as promised, but it’s occasionally been difficult not to call even more. She still has nightmares about Maura, lost in the darkness of the caves, and about Persephone, lost in a different kind of darkness all together. 

After the three of them unpack the car and set up camp, Adam starts working on the fire while Blue gets the dinner supplies out of the cooler. They’ll need to go on a grocery run soon, and probably also stay in a motel for a night, because frankly, it’s been too many days since Blue’s had a real shower. 

Gansey’s standing a few feet away from them with his hands tucked deep in the pockets of his khakis, staring out at the trees. “I think I’m going to take a walk.” 

Blue and Adam glance at each other, and Adam inclines his head slightly in a silent question. Blue nods. “Want company?” she asks Gansey, dusting off her hands on her jeans. 

Gansey lifts his thumb to his lips, and nods slowly. “That would be nice.”

~

The sun is setting fast, making the shadows of the gnarled black walnut trees craggy and tangled beneath their feet. Clusters of wild clover and shrubby St. John’s Wort line their way, and drooping bluebells and climbing milkweed dot the banks of shallow stream they follow south of the campsite. Gansey keeps pace with Blue, even though Blue’s steps are half as long as his, and as they walk, the weight of the silence seems to grow heavy with purpose. 

It doesn’t surprise Blue when Gansey’s steps slow, and she stops beside him, pushing her hands into the wide pockets of her homemade dress. When Gansey finally speaks, his voice is softer than the gentle murmur of the stream before them.

“How did you bring me back?” Gansey doesn’t look at her, but in the deepening twilight, Blue can make out the bow of his head; the composed suffering of his expression. “I don’t remember, Blue. All I remember is – ” 

He cuts himself off abruptly, inhaling slowly, and Blue reaches for him without meaning to, her hand finding his in the space between them and holding fast. His skin is cold, despite the warmth of the night, and she shudders, leaning into him. Selfishly, she doesn’t ask what he remembers. She’s not sure she’s brave enough for the answer.

Blue looks down at a leaf spinning untidily in an eddy formed by the current moving around a small boulder, and remembers the disbelieving fury that had swept through her when Adam had translated Cabeswater’s answer to their desperate demands.

~

_“We did everything you fucking asked!” Ronan screams at the trees surrounding the clearing, fists bloody and face twisted with furious, tear-streaked anguish. Blue is huddled back by Gansey’s body, unable to look at it but unable to move away either, and Adam is hunched a few feet from her, tarot cards spread across the leaves in chaotic disarray. She can barely make out the five cards he’s laid down through the tears clouding her vision, but she sees enough detail to recognize them: King of Wands crossed by Eight of Cups. Judgment crossed by Ten of Cups. The World._

_“Please,” Ronan pleads to the forest, much more quietly, voice strained. “How do we get him back?”_

_“Adam?” Blue asks in a whisper, one hand clutched to her heart, like that will close the torrent of pain stemming from what feels like the very center of her soul. Adam’s face is blank and empty as he studies the cards, but his hand shakes violently as he touches the Ten of Cups questioningly. A hissing susurrus ripples from the leaves of the trees around the clearing, and for a moment Blue is terrified that the ground will start to shake again and another one of them will fall. But then Blue realizes the sounds are Latin, the first time the forest has spoken to them directly since this all began._

_She watches the shaking coil of Ronan’s body go still and he looks over at them, wild eyes skittering past the body on the ground. He looks disbelieving as he translates the words, staring at Blue and Adam. “Love’s kiss. True love’s kiss.”_

_Adam nods slowly, and something fractures inside Blue, splitting apart her grief into furious incredulity. She’s on her feet and moving, roaming the clearing like she might find something to crash violently into. She’s had enough of her damn life dictated by an ominous prophecy of true love’s kiss. The memory of Gansey’s quiet gasp and sudden stillness following her lips pressed to his makes her want to scream. “This isn’t a fucking fairy tale!” she shouts at the sky, the trees, the earth; body aching with bruises and exhaustion, hands held in tight fists at her sides. The forest rings with mocking silence, and she clasps her fists to her temples._

_Cold fingers brush her arm, startling her from her desperate anger, and she turns to see nothing next to her. But when she closes her eyes, she can feel the slight tug in her stomach that means someone’s borrowing energy from her, and she smells cold rain and smoke. Noah. Blue reaches out to nothing, heart twisting, and the barest whisper ghosts against her cheek. “Try, Blue. Try.”_

_Heart pounding, Blue turns back to Adam and Ronan and – and Gansey. Ronan’s staring at her intently, looking as focused as she’s ever seen him. Adam holds out a hand to her, urging her back. Unsteadily, she crosses the clearing to them, and sinks down next to the body, avoiding a cluster of mint leaves that had fallen from Gansey’s pocket and are now spattered with his blood._

_“Who?” she asks shakily, because even though it was her love that helped kill him, he is not solely hers. Ronan kneels slowly on Gansey’s right side, face an unholy wreck as he looks down at the body and then up at Blue and Adam._

_Ronan and Adam share a look that seems to last forever, and then Adam says, very quietly, “All of us.”_

_As soon as he says it, Blue knows he’s right, with a certainty she’s experienced only a handful of times in her life. She watches as Ronan reverently takes Gansey’s still hand in both of his, pressing it briefly to his forehead and then holding it close to his lips. Blue glances to Adam, and the two of them lean down together – Blue looking down into the hollow face, Adam resting his hand to the smooth forehead._

_“Now,” Blue whispers, and her lips meet Gansey’s; and she can somehow feel Adam’s lips pressed to his temple, and Ronan’s to the inside of his palm, and something spectral that feels like Noah against the knuckles of his other hand. They kiss Gansey together as one devastated, fiercely hoping entity, and the wind shifts, stirring the leaves of the trees in a gentle sigh around them._

_A sharp feeling like a static shock shoots through Blue, ending at the place her lips touch Gansey’s, and she pulls away in surprise. The world seems to go silent as they all stop breathing at once, and it’s quiet enough that Blue’s heartbeat seems to echo in the clearing; or maybe it’s all of their heartbeats, or maybe it’s –_

_Gansey stirs._

~

A kestrel calls desperately from the trees next to the stream, and Gansey’s fingers brush over the back of Blue’s hand. She realizes they’ve been standing in silence for several minutes. She wipes at her cheek with the back of her hand. “True love’s kiss,” she answers softly, and only a little bitterly, because after all, he’s standing next to her now, alive and breathing. “Like a fairy tale.”

His eyes go wide with surprise, and his thumb brushes his lower lip as he turns his head to look at her. “You?” he asks, a little apprehensively, and she smiles as she shakes her head.

“All of us.”

Gansey’s eyes widen, and a beautiful expression of wonder blossoms over his face. Then he tugs her to him, and their arms wrap tightly around each other. Blue holds him until they both stop shaking.


	5. a blossom for his brow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang spends the night at a crappy motel. Ronan's still feeling shaken (read: being an asshole) after his nightmare. Blue is left to deal with him.

“This place is a shithole,” Ronan bites out, slinging his backpack onto the threadbare armchair. In Blue’s personal opinion, the room’s not half bad; it’s clean enough, and doesn’t look like it’s been recently used as meth den, which is more than can be said for a lot of the motels back home. Ronan eyes the two queen beds critically, like they’ve told him he has to go back for another year of high school. “Why the fuck can’t we stay somewhere decent?”

“It looks comfortable enough to me,” Gansey tells him idly, pulling his laptop out of his bag and setting it on the desk. “And it’s in the budget.” Gansey glances at Blue to see if she’s noticed him being practical about money, and she resists the urge to roll her eyes. 

“Plus, there’s a shower,” Blue says, already digging out her toiletries and glancing at the bathroom. “Which at this point feels like a five-star amenity.”

Ronan’s still glaring at the beds. He toes at the edge of one of the garishly patterned comforters with his boot, his face warped in an ugly sneer. “These are probably crawling with fucking bedbugs.” 

“Sleep in the tub, then,” Adam snaps from his place near the door; he’s been gradually losing patience with Ronan since they’d packed up the campsite that morning without Ronan’s help. “I’m going for a walk.”

He’s out the door before anyone can answer, leaving Ronan looking even more thunderous, the tension in the room loud enough that Blue wishes for the dozenth time that she’d brought earplugs. Gansey’s rubbing slowly at his temples as he looks at his laptop screen, apparently too tired to call Ronan to heel. 

“Stop being shitty,” Blue shoots at Ronan, and he flips her off, tossing himself down onto the apparently bedbug-infested bed. She heads into the bathroom with her bag and slams the door behind her, annoyed that his attitude’s getting to her. As she sheds her dirty clothes, she hears Gansey murmur something and Ronan snap something back, and she grimaces and turns on the shower, getting under the hot spray of water with a long, thankful sigh. 

Twenty minutes later, she’s thoroughly scrubbed and feeling much more human, and she dries off and changes into loose pajama shorts and an oversized cotton t-shirt, which is a hand-me-down from Calla that reads  _ I Hate Mondays (all the other days suck too.) _

When she leaves the bathroom, still toweling at her hair, there's no sign of Gansey, and Ronan is leaning against the far wall. It takes Blue a second to register that he's holding a bottle of beer in his hand, and then worry spills into Blue’s stomach like excess acid, making her vaguely nauseous. 

Six months back, Ronan had drunk himself into such terrifying incoherency that a grim-faced Gansey had taken him to the ER. Ronan had been fine after several hours of vomiting, but Gansey’s silent, awful anguish that followed the crisis had apparently been enough to have an impact. Ronan had thrown out all his alcohol, and even though they all knew he could easily dream or buy more, they’d taken it as the promise it was meant to be. 

So even though she knows she  _ shouldn’t _ , she snaps, "That had better be non-alcoholic.”

"Funny, you don't look like my mother," Ronan says flippantly, but Blue can see the knife's edge poking from beneath his shoulder blades. "You'd make a pretty fucking ineffective cop, too. You have to be taller than a fourth grader to have any hope of intimidating anyone." 

Blue ignores the barb - she's known him long enough to know he's trying to distract her, and she's gotten good at not rising to his deflecting bait. Most of the time. "Do what you want," Blue says calmly, going back to the bathroom to hang up her towel and reemerging a minute later fluffing her fingers through her hair so it all stands on end. "But when Gansey comes back and smells that on your breath, what do you think is gonna happen?" Ronan looks like he's gearing up to let out a slew of profanities, so she quickly continues, "Where is he, anyway?”

Ronan narrows his eyes at her, cruel mouth cocked and ready, but then he seems to run out of steam, looking away with a vicious shrug. His fingers clutch the bottle a little bit tighter.

_ Great,  _ she thinks, annoyed at both Gansey and Adam for leaving her to deal with Ronan in this mood. She knows she can match a riled up Ronan shout for shout, but frankly, she doesn't have the energy. She isn't a babysitter or a probation officer or a therapist, she's his friend, and he responds best to honesty and directness. She puts her hands on her hips and channels her inner Maura.

"Okay then, listen up, Lynch. I'm too tired to deal with your crap, so if you're trying to pick a fight with me, you’re gonna have to find another way to entertain yourself."

She doesn't wait for him to respond, even though she can feel him simmering; just steps over to her stuff and turns her back to him to remind him  _ I'm not intimidated by you. _ She grabs her backpack and tosses herself onto one of the beds, rooting around for her book and thoroughly ignoring the tall slash of broodiness in the corner. Then she fluffs the pillow against her back, finds her spot in  _ American Gods  _ (Shadow’s just met Sam, Blue’s favorite character), and settles in to read.

A few minutes later, the clink of glass on wood gets her attention, and she sees that Ronan's come around to perch on the bed opposite her, setting his beer on the bedside table. She realizes with a start that the cap is still fixed on the unopened bottle, and her eyes dart to his face to scrutinize him carefully. He’s not looking at her, just picking at his bracelets, the muscles in his shoulders sharp enough to cut diamonds, the spires and jagged tangles of his tattoo dangerous in the dim halogen light of the bedside lamp. 

She recognizes this Ronan. This is the Ronan they’d seen after he’d finally found out about Gansey’s promise of death. After his anger had detonated in a spectacular shouting match, some mindless destruction of property, and that close call with alcohol poisoning, he’d come back to them diminished, looking smaller than Blue had ever seen him. He’d tried to keep up appearances, arming himself with the prickly barbed wire of denial and action, but the terror underneath had leaked through.

Blue hesitates, considering her options. It’s very unlikely Ronan would appreciate her trying to engage him in a heart to heart, and that kind of thing is hardly her forte, anyway. But they’ve been through a lot together at this point. Blue dog-ears the corner of the page she’s on, and sets the book down in her lap.

“I know you probably don’t want to talk or anything, and that’s fine,” Blue starts carefully. Ronan doesn’t give any impression of having heard her speak, furrowed gaze boring into the threadbare carpet. “But it’s okay if you’re scared, even if you think you shouldn’t be. I’m still scared, too. And so is Adam. He told me the other day.” Again, Ronan has no response, but he doesn’t tell her to fuck off, either, which frankly is a lot more encouragement than she was expecting. Blue sets down her book, and reaches up to fluff at her damp hair again. “Honestly, I think we’re all terrified. It’s a miracle we can even function.”

Ronan's muscles stay stiff, and he raises his wrist to his mouth to chew viciously on his bracelets for a moment. “There’s no goddamn reason to be,” he finally replies, low in his throat. “The worst has already happened.” 

The fact that he’s not running away by now is some sort of miracle. “Yeah, but that kind of makes it harder,” she tells him slowly, remembering Adam’s words in the forest. “Because now we know exactly how bad it feels.” 

Ronan grunts a little and drops his hand back to his leg, which is jiggling wildly with pent-up energy. He cracks his knuckles, and Blue cracks her knuckles a second later like an echo, which makes his mouth twitch a little. 

“But, hey,” Blue adds thoughtfully, a minute later. “We brought him back once, and we’re gonna find a way to bring Noah back too. So really, the world should be scared of  _ us _ .” Ronan finally glances up at her, sharp eyes burning with suppressed emotion, and she can feel him riding the edge of detonation. Picking her words carefully, Blue nods toward the bottle. “I saw a wall out back by the dumpsters you could go smash that on, if you thought it might help.” 

She desperately wants to tell him to both be careful and to clean up after himself if he does so some poor employee doesn’t have to pick up glass shards, but she thinks she’s probably pushing it as it is. His gaze drops from hers, which is like stepping out of direct sunlight, and she quietly goes back to her book, keeping a quarter of her attention on him. A few minutes later, he picks up the bottle and slips out of the room.

Blue wars with her curiosity for half a second and then springs up to go to the window, which faces the back lot. She watches Ronan’s figure stalk toward the cement wall, and braces herself for the sound of shattering glass, but it never comes. Instead, Ronan opens the dumpster, tosses the bottle inside, stares after it for a second, then slams the lid shut. He heads back toward the front, and Blue hurries back to the bed, getting herself re-situated with her book just before she hears the key in the door.  

When Ronan comes inside, he disappears into the bathroom without saying anything, and Blue hears the shower start up. It’s a few minutes before she thinks to check her phone (it’s still weird to have a phone at all), and she unearths it from the side pocket of her backpack.

 

**Gansey III @ 6:22 p.m.**   
_ On the hunt for pizza. Would you like your usual?  _

**Gansey III @ 6:25 p.m.  
** _ I’m sorry, I should’ve asked if you wanted to come with me. I just wanted some space.  _

**Gansey III @ 6:26 p.m.  
** _ Not from you, though.  _

**Gansey III @ 6:27 p.m.** **  
** _ Is Adam back yet? _

**Gansey III @ 6:28 p.m.  
** _ Damn, you get charged by the text, don’t you? I’ll pay you back. _

**Gansey III @ 6:50 p.m.  
** _ Last one. Drove quite a bit further than I meant to. Still in search of pizza. Call me if you need anything. If Ronan’s still being an ass, I’m sorry, ignore him. _

Blue shakes her head, smiling a little, and painstakingly texts him a reply.

**Blue @ 7:02 p.m.**   
_ everything’s fine, take your time. pineapple/olives!! no adam yet. you can pay me back for the texts in pizza.  
_   
She considers for a minute, and then adds,   
  
__ ronan’s ok. stop worrying.

~ 

Ronan stays in the shower for long enough that Blue is intensely engrossed in her book by the time he's done, and doesn't even notice him come back into the room until suddenly she experiences a mini earthquake as he flops face down onto the bed next to her.  He's wearing a pair of Gansey's grey sweats and his tank-top-style binder without a shirt over it, and that show of vulnerability tells Blue that he must be doing a little better. She nudges him in the side with her knee, and he grunts, then turns his head to face her, giving her a fierce look.

“Don't tell Gansey,” he says gruffly.  

She thinks about him throwing away the bottle. “I won't,” she agrees, and nudges him again. “Do you have any more?”

“None of your goddamn business,” he says, in a way that means  _ no.  _

Blue doesn't respond, just goes back to reading, and a few minutes later Ronan rolls half on top of her to grab the TV remote from the bedside table. She squawks and shoves him off, and he grins as he flicks the TV on. Blue can't focus with both sound and noise happening, especially with the commentary from the soccer match that Ronan seems to have settled on, and she glares at him. “Too loud.”

“Tough shit, Sargent,” Ronan says flippantly, but the volume bar appears as he turns it down a few degrees. 

Satisfied, Blue zones back out in her reading, and when she next looks up, she sees a tray of cupcakes being meticulously decorated with floral fondant on the TV. Blue raises an eyebrow. “What's this?”

“Cupcake Wars _ ,”  _ Ronan says, entirely unconcerned about her opinion on his television viewing habits, and she watches for a few minutes, getting far more engrossed than she ever would've guessed she'd be in a competitive baking show.

By the time Gansey and Adam get back, Ronan and Blue have finished one episode and started the next, and are loudly heckling the judges when the door opens. Gansey enters, arms full of pizza boxes, looking flummoxed but pleased to find them watching TV together beneath Blue's afghan. 

“Finally,” Ronan bites out, but Blue can see a bit of relief in the way his shoulders loosen when he sees Gansey. “Did you get triple meat for me?”

“I got everything,” Gansey says, setting the pizza boxes on the table and giving Blue a warm smile that makes her heart ache in a nice way. Gansey glances at the TV. “What are you - ”

Adam interrupts him by arriving then, looking much more vibrant than when he'd left. Blue mutes the TV and they sit on the beds in an untidy, tired sprawl, eating pizza while Adam tells them what he’d found: a field to scry in, the fragmented ley line pounding beneath his feet, the certainty that they’re on the right track. Gansey claps him on the back and Blue smiles around her pineapple and olive slice and Ronan is quiet, his eyes soft and unguarded for the first time in two days. 

~

Later that night, Blue wakes from a convoluted nightmare about Persephone and Noah that leaves her unsettled enough that she has to go to the bathroom and sit next to the toilet for a little while with a cool washcloth on her face. When she’s calmed herself down, she tiptoes back to her bed, where Adam’s curled on the far side of the mattress facing the wall, and lies back down. 

Ronan had wordlessly picked the bed that Gansey was tucked into when it was time to sleep, and none of them had questioned or protested the sleeping arrangements. Blue’s enjoyed curling up next to Gansey in their sleeping bags every night in the tent, liking the way his breath fans out over her hair, and Ronan and Adam have been sharing their blankets more often than not. But Blue’s equally comfortable sharing a bed with Adam, and understands Ronan’s desire to feel Gansey’s heart beating close by while he sleeps. 

After half an hour of trying and failing to flee the discomfort the nightmare had caused her, Blue grudgingly finds her phone and gets up to slip on her shoes and a jacket, knowing she won’t be able to sleep until she hears her mom’s voice. Outside, the sickle orange of the sodium lights illuminating the parking lot blot out her view of the stars. She sits down on the curb, the cherry SUV with all their stuff in it hunkered in the spot next to her like a sentinel.

Despite the fact that it’s four a.m., Maura picks up on the second ring, which isn’t very surprising. “Blue.”

“Hi.”  
  
A soft breath, and Blue can imagine her curled on her side in bed, maybe Dean or maybe Calla asleep next to her. “Did you get a little lost in your dreams?” Maura asks, soft. Her voice is the warmth of peppermint tea, gentle fingers brushing through Blue’s hair to sort out the tangles, the texture of the quilt on Blue’s bed back home.

Blue wipes away a tear and wonders how many more millions are left in her. It seems like she should be dry by now. “A little.” There’s a breeze on Blue’s bare legs, and she shivers, huddling over them, the gravel of the parking lot crunching a little beneath her boots. 

Maura hums, and there’s a soft rustle on the line. Blue imagines her getting out of bed, pacing to the big window overlooking the beech tree, tucking herself into the squishy armchair where Blue used to fall asleep in her lap, and closes her eyes, tilting her head to rest on her knees. 

They talk for half an hour - well, mostly Maura talks about nothing in particular while listening to Blue breathe, and Blue allows herself to curl up in the comfort of her mother’s voice and wallow in homesickness. By the time Maura asks if Blue thinks she can fall back asleep, Blue’s feeling a little less raw, and she agrees to call later today as usual and hangs up, setting her cheap cell phone down on the concrete ledge next to her.

The sound of footsteps coming down the walkway startles Blue, and she looks up to find Ronan approaching. Her heart sinks as she sees another bottle in his hand, but when he stops and drops down to sit on the curb next to her, she sees that it’s a glass bottle of Coke. He’s fully dressed, and she wonders how long he’s been awake, or if he’d ever gone to sleep at all.  

Neither of them speak for a minute, until another icy middle-of-the-night breeze whispers cruelly over Blue’s bare legs and she realizes she’s shivering. Ronan takes a sip of his Coke and pulls out one of his earbuds. “Cold as a penguin’s tit out here.”

“Yep,” Blue agrees. Neither of them moves to go inside, though, and after another minute, Ronan sets down his Coke and shrugs off his leather jacket, thrusting it at Blue. It’s late enough and she’s cold enough and he’s Ronan enough that she doesn’t protest the chivalry, just spreads the jacket over her legs, tucking it gratefully around her thighs. 

The nearly empty parking lot observes them for a while. Blue hates that she can’t see the stars past the harshly glowing lights above them, it makes her feel even farther from home. Right now, she can’t even remember what state they’re in. 

“Are you homesick?” Blue finds herself asking, looking askance at Ronan. His sharp features carve a familiar silhouette into the darkness, and he doesn’t look back at her, just rolls the bottle between his fingers. 

After a minute, he shakes his head. “Nah."

Blue wants to protest. She knows how much he adores the Barns, even more so now that Aurora’s moved back, her vibrant presence filling the space with light. He must miss Monmouth, too, and Matthew, and Chainsaw; Blue knows how much his fortress of an exterior hides a deeply adoring heart. 

She frowns at him until he shoves his shoulder into her lightly, and finally glances back at her, raising an eyebrow. “Don’t be an idiot, Sargent. Home’s here.” He inclines his head slightly, back toward the door of the motel, and Blue finds herself smiling.

“You’re sappy as hell, Lynch, did you know that?” She drops her head to his shoulder, rubbing the tufts of her messy hair against the stubble of his jaw, even as he growls in protest. He’s right, in a way. Blue’s home will always be the foothills of Henrietta and the beech tree and most of all her beloved, loud, obnoxious family, but it’s in the heart of her boys, too.

The reminder fills her with a soft, glowing warmth that triples and expands as Ronan wraps an arm loosely around her shoulders. Blue’s always sort of wondered what it would be like to have a brother. Now she thinks she might know.  
  
After a while, Ronan barks, “I’m freezing my fucking balls off,” effectively ruining the moment. Blue rolls her eyes fondly and shrugs his arm off, and they head back inside. 


	6. range after range

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First there's some long awaited specifically shippy shit. and then some shit starts to go very wrong.
> 
> _“Gansey!” she hears Ronan call, and he shakes her again. “Damn it, the fuck is wrong with you? Stay awake.”_
> 
> _It’s hard. There’s a pit of darkness sucking at her, everything is very heavy, oppressive. Her limbs each weigh a thousand tons; her head weighs more. She feels like one of those victims accused of witchcraft, crushed to death beneath the weight of more and more stacked stones._

The next morning, Gansey and Adam decide to go on a supply run at the grocery store down the street. Blue and Ronan, both in a sleep deficit, are unwilling to be coaxed out of bed. They doze separately for a while, until Blue gets tired of the quiet and flicks the TV on, keeping the volume low. She flips through channels aimlessly until eventually she ends up back at Food Network, which is curiously still playing reruns of Cupcake Wars. She manages to fall back asleep until the mattress experiences another earthquake and there’s a sleep-ruffled Ronan shoving his way under the covers with her, bag of cheese puffs in hand. 

The weird breakfast choice and the hard look he gives her, as if daring her to judge him, suggests he’s feeling better today. Ronan makes no mention about either of their conversations, last night or yesterday, or about his reasoning for being in her bed instead of his own, just goes right into harshly the judging cupcake chefs’ life choices, and Blue wonders if this is his weird way of thanking her. 

“So. Now that you can, are you ever gonna kiss Gansey again?” Ronan asks, half an hour later and so far out of left field that it takes Blue a second to even process the question. He’s looking at her with one eyebrow cocked in a clear dare. 

Blue picks up her water bottle from the table and takes a delicate sip. “Dunno. Now that you can, are you ever gonna kiss Adam again?”

Blue gets a second to enjoy the sheer surprise on Ronan’s face before he shuts it down and smooths it over, and she makes a note to fist-bump herself in the mirror later. “Shut the fuck up and pass the cheese thingies.” 

“Get them yourself, asshole,” she counters, and so he leans over her, poking his elbow into her side as she yelps and smacks him with the remote. 

It’s not that she hasn’t thought about it. It’s just not exactly easy to shrug off a lifelong curse, and they’ve all been too busy relishing each other’s continued existence and worrying about Noah to have a lot of opportunity to steal kisses. 

Once Ronan puts the thought back in her head, though, it’s hard to shake.

~

They power through that day’s driving without stopping much. Kansas feels like one long fever dream, the land around them flat as the dust in the fields. Blue sleeps for several hours and wakes up in Colorado, her cheek pressed up to the glass of the passenger’s window, and the trees seem like a mirage. The sunset sky is the color of a fresh bruise, a huge swath of magenta and pink dabbed with vibrant orange and crimson on the horizon. 

Adam and Ronan are bickering in the backseat, a sound so familiar that Blue’s surprised it doesn’t immediately lull her back to sleep, and Gansey’s glowing golden with the last rays of light in the driver’s seat. He gives Blue a warm smile when he notices her sitting up and stretching, and reaches over to pat her knee. “Good evening and welcome to the Great West!” he says grandly, gesturing out at the rows of aspens along the highway. “We’re very nearly to the Rockies.”

He says the word with such pride and fondness that it’s not hard to guess he’s been there before. Blue lets out a spectacular yawn, and reaches over to pat his shoulder. “Tha’s good.” 

“You slept for-fucking-ever,” Ronan comments, apparently bored with trying to get a rise out of Adam. He’s chewing on the red straw of yet another Slurpee, his tenth or eleventh of the trip. “You missed about three hours of bumfuck nowhere.”

“Mm, shame,” Blue says absently, stealing Gansey’s phone to check where they are on the map. Weirdly, she’s still exhausted. “Did we stop anywhere to work on the line?”

“Nope,” Adam answers. He seems tired but content, turning the deck of tarot cards over and over in his hands like it’s a comfort object he’s had since childhood. It makes Blue’s heart swell and ache at the same time, to see something so personal to Persephone treated with such familiarity and respect. “I’m holding out for the mountains. Lots of energy to work with there.”

Blue nods in agreement. “Are we stopping to camp soon?” In response, Gansey points to a sign they’re passing, which announces a KOA off of the next exit. 

Ronan makes a joke about pitching tents, and everyone dutifully ignores him.

~

Once they’re at the campsite, Blue gets started building the fire while Gansey cuts up sausage and vegetables for kebabs at the picnic table nearby. Blue hears Ronan swearing loudly at the tent, which is apparently giving him and Adam some trouble this evening, and smiles at the tiny flame she’s coaxed out of newspaper and dry bits of pinecone in the grate. The sky’s taken on the burnt purple of early summer evening above them, and the towering pines encircling their campsite create a nice frame for it. The Big Dipper winks at her, and Blue winks back. She’s still tired, somehow, despite sleeping half the day away in the car. 

She feels eyes on her, and looks over to find Gansey watching her, an expression of such shameless fondness on his face that she brandishes her fire-poking stick at him. “What’re you looking at, J Crew?” 

It’s not an entirely appropriate nickname anymore. Gansey’s taken to wearing less designer boat shoes and polos and more to loose t-shirts lightly stained with grease from working on the Pig with Adam or with holes ripped in the hem from exuberant climbs up the sides of mountains with Blue. There’s also been a few tank tops in the mix that Blue suspects belonged to Ronan at some point by the way they’re slightly too long for Gansey. 

Mrs. Gansey would probably be appalled if she saw him, but since Gansey came back, he doesn’t seem to have the energy to put on airs anymore. It’s as if death had peeled away some of the external _Richard Gansey III_ and uncovered more of the Gansey beneath, the one Blue knows from late night drives and fiercely held hands and smudges of dirt on his face as he laughs with abandon among the trees.

Right now, he's wearing a faded yellow tank top and dingy darker yellow shorts and yet somehow still manages not to look like a giant banana. He’s leaning against the picnic table and still smiling at her, so Blue pushes herself up and goes to him, taking his hands in hers and pressing their fingertips together. She gives into the urge to lean into him, her chest pressed to his chest, her forehead right at the level of his lips. From this close, she can smell the scent of his skin, all crushed oak leaves and spearmint and cloves and the heat of summer. She takes his hands and places them on her waist; they span the base of her ribcage, solid and warm. Sensation ripples outward as he gently squeezes her sides, a pleasant humming that makes her nerve endings pay closer attention, and she looks up at him, finding him looking down at her from inches away. She lets herself study him from this dangerous closeness as their breath mingles: the slope of his strong nose. The square, handsome line of his jaw, peppered with light golden hair. The depth of his eyes, watching her with unmasked adoration in the encroaching darkness between them.

Gansey’s hands move to splay across her lower back, fingers kneading gently at the base of her spine. He always touches her with such comfortable reverence; the same way he thumbs through the pages of his journal, the same way he touches the roof of the Pig before he climbs inside, the same way he runs his fingers over the crown of Ronan's head, and warm sparks swirl through her like they're bursting from a bonfire in her chest. She moves her hand so it’s resting over his heart. His pulse is trapped beneath her fingertips, and her lips part as she watches his face, captivated.

It's too much. It's all too much. She wants so badly to close the distance between their lips. She wants more and she can’t have it; for entirely different reasons now than a few months ago. She ducks her head so her forehead is pressed to his collarbone, but the temptation is still sore and unwieldy. 

“Blue?” Gansey asks quietly, concerned and slightly breathless, and she wraps her arms around him and hugs him as tightly as she can. She wants to explain, and to reassure him, to say _I just need some time, I love you_ \- but she’s exhausted and tangled up in her thoughts and feelings and the memory of her lips being the last thing Gansey had tasted before his heart had stopped. She doesn’t know if there will be enough time in the world to forget that.

They’re all haunted in different ways. Living your whole life with a curse and then seeing it come to fruition in a way that smashes your heart into the bloody dirt is bound to make anyone anxious in the after. That thought is in Maura’s voice, and Blue tries to believe it.

“I’m tired,” is all she ends up saying, and Gansey doesn’t press the matter. She thinks, being him, that he probably understands the way the past echoes into the present. She helps him spear meat and bell peppers with sticks and stick them on the campfire’s grill, and then they sit together on the log and watch the flames crackle and quietly talk when it feels right to. Neither of them say anything when Adam and Ronan eventually make their way over from setting up the tent, both looking flushed and ruffled and having a hard time making eye contact with anyone, and the tender ache of Blue’s heart is tempered a little by secondhand happiness.

~

She’s back in the cave. The first cave. The one with the pit that swallowed Gansey whole, before they knew what lay at the bottom. It shouldn’t be terrifying, now that Blue’s faced worse, but she’s still working hard to scramble up slick rock, trying to find the surface. A heavy malevolence seems to hang in the stale, ancient air, making Blue pant as she trips, scraping her knees on the rock. The pain isn’t as shocking as it should be, possibly because of the panic worming its way into her veins, and she imagines her impenetrable shield of safety around her. There’s the sick sense that she’s not alone, and that whatever’s with her isn’t harmless.

Her foot catches something soft, and she hesitates, bending down to quickly investigate in case it’s someone who needs help. The body – it’s clearly a body, she can make out that much – is stiff and cold. Blue’s gasps are amplified in her ears now, and even as she reaches out to turn the person over, she knows she’s going to find the lifeless face of someone she loves. Not again. Please, not again. 

Then claws are grabbing her from behind, and she screams even as she throws out her elbow, trying to get free. 

“Sargent.” 

The voice gives her pause, even as she spins around in the darkness, looking for a phantom adversary. There’s buzzing and a furious beating of wings all around her.

“Sargent!” 

The claws are back, curled tightly around her shoulders, shaking her roughly. 

“ _Blue_.”

She opens her eyes to find Ronan inches away from her, terror and fury etched in the sharp lines of his face. “Jesus, there - you _wouldn’t fucking wake up_.” 

She’s not totally sure she _is_ awake. Everything has a drowned, hazy quality to it – her heart should be pounding furiously from the nightmare, but instead it’s sluggish, struggling to push out each beat. Ronan’s still holding tightly to her shoulders, and he can’t hide how badly shaken he is. 

Blue's head lolls a little and she tries to say something, but all that comes out is a quiet moan as her eyes fall closed again. 

“Gansey!” she hears Ronan call, and he shakes her again. “Damn it, the fuck is wrong with you? Stay awake.” 

It’s hard. There’s a pit of darkness sucking at her, everything is very heavy, oppressive. Her limbs each weigh a thousand tons; her head weighs more. She feels like one of those victims accused of witchcraft, crushed to death beneath the weight of more and more stacked stones. 

Gansey is there suddenly, his hands cupping her cheeks. She must’ve lost consciousness again briefly. “Blue? Blue. What’s wrong? Are you sick?”

“She keeps – it’s like she can’t stay conscious,” Ronan bites out, and Blue tries to shake her head. It’s not that, it’s – something – something she can’t – 

Gansey’s levering her upright, and she’s surprised he can move her leaden body. He pulls her against his chest, propping her up with her head on his shoulder. Blue struggles to regain control of her body, she almost feels drugged. “Tired,” she manages to murmur, although it’s not what she means to say.

“You slept for nearly twelve hours. I sent Ronan in here to get you up so we could finish packing,” Gansey tells her, worry straining his voice. “What do you need?” Blue shakes her head slowly, she doesn’t know what to tell him or how to even answer. Gansey shifts for a moment, reaching out for something from Ronan, and then he’s holding a water bottle to her lips. She finds drinking is something she’s able to do, although water spills out of the corners of her mouth. She swallows, and Gansey wipes her face gently dry with his shirt. “Does that help?” She nods a little, and he gives her another few sips, waiting patiently for her to slowly drink. When she’s had enough, she turns her face against his neck and focuses on breathing. Gansey presses his hand to her forehead and murmurs something, and Blue hears Adam’s voice say something back. 

Then exhaustion overtakes her, and there’s nothing else for a while.

~

Blue wakes up what feels like several hours later. She’s on her side with a body curled tightly around her; from the familiar shape, she can tell it’s Gansey’s, although she’s used to being the big spoon. With relief, she finds she can move her body normally again. She still feels exhausted, despite the fact that she’d slept all through one night and through what feels like a lot of today. She shifts a little, testing her limbs, and Gansey’s fingers brush over her cheek. She turns her head to find him watching her anxiously. 

“I'm okay,” she croaks, turning in his arms so she can face him. It’s difficult but not impossible to move, and she shakes herself a little.

“How do you feel?” Gansey asks, brushing his thumb over her cheek. 

Blue considers through the fog of tiredness in her head. “Better. Hungry. Really hungry. And I have to pee.”

Gansey smiles thinly and runs his fingers through her hair. “That’s understandable. Are you dizzy at all?” 

“No,” Blue says, and he allows her to push herself upright. She waves away his helping hand. “Stop it, I'm okay.”

“Blue,” he says quietly. “You weren’t okay earlier.” 

“No,” she agrees, but there’s nothing to be done about that now, and she needs to focus on making sure she has control of herself again, or she’s going to freak out. She eases herself up to her feet, wincing at the stiffness in her body, and leaves the tent, grateful for the lack of vertigo. 

Ronan and Adam are sitting by the fire, Adam’s arm around Ronan’s waist, and they both look up when she comes out. She waves away their questioning looks, and goes into the bushes to pee. When she’s finished, she moves to the log by the fire and plops herself down next to Gansey. All three of them look at her like she might explode. “I don’t know,” she says. “I feel okay now. I don’t know what that was. Maybe something I ate.” They’d all eaten the same food, though, and none of the others look worse for the wear. 

“I think we should take you to urgent care,” Gansey says quietly. “We couldn’t wake you, Blue. You were unconscious.”

A shudder works its way through her, and she shakes her head firmly. “I just need some food.”

“Blue – ”

“No.” Going to the hospital would be admitting something is wrong. Blue’s tenuous hold on her calm tries to fracture at the thought. Wordlessly, she goes to dig in the cooler, and none of them speak through the late lunch they have. Blue eats twice her usual amount and still is hungry afterward. She ignores that, and the pervasive exhaustion, and she goes to start packing up camp. It’s late afternoon, but not too late to make more progress onward today. She glares the boys down when they suggest they stay another night at the campsite. 

“You should call your mother,” Gansey says, as he passes her carrying a sleeping bag. “She’ll want to hear about this.” 

“God, you didn’t call her earlier, did you?”

“No,” Gansey says, although he gives her a look that tells her it was a hard decision not to. “I would have if you’d slept much longer.”

Blue forcefully closes the silverware box, making its contents rattle. “Well, I didn't, so it’s fine. No reason to make her worry.” Gansey gives her a reproachful look, but lets her walk away.

~

After only an hour of driving on the pine-lined highway into the mountains, Adam has them pull off on a nondescript service road heading east. “There’s something,” he says ambiguously, shuffling the deck in his hands and looking out the window. 

“Real specific, Parrish,” Ronan comments, and Adam just shrugs. They park and follow Adam up a craggy slope between the trees, the stones and roots slippery beneath Blue's clumsy feet. They climb until the ground levels out, and Adam leads them to a small spring bubbling up out of the ground at the base of two intertwined trees, touching the trunk of one like he's going to take communion with it. Blue takes deep breaths of air scrubbed clean by the presence of so many trees and so few people, trying to wake herself up a bit more. She still feels like she’s walking through a dream. 

Adam treads a circle, then a smaller circle, and finally sits down on the ground in the center of where he’d been walking, frowning a bit. “It’s strong, but very fractured here,” he tells them, pulling a few cards into a cross formation and glancing up at the sky. “Blue, could you help?”

Blue dutifully goes forward to lend him her energy, placing her hand on his shoulder. And then Adam freezes. She stares down at him as he turns his head to look at her hand. He glances up at her, then takes her hand in both of his. “Blue,” he says softly, like he’s trying not to scare her, but her heart is already pounding. “Something is wrong.”

“What do you mean?” she demands. His hands feel very warm around hers, and he stands up, looking at her face. He takes her other hand as well and cups them both in his, squeezing hard. She squeezes back. She can feel more than see Gansey and Ronan drawing closer, and feels Gansey’s hand gently touch her lower back. “ _What’s_ wrong?”

Adam shakes his head, and the uncertainty in his eyes chisels a hole in her carefully constructed calm. “Your energy is just...not there.” 

Blue wants to stamp her foot in frustration. She visualizes her shields, imagines dropping them to let Adam in, to give some of her unending battery to power his magic. Nothing happens, and Adam watches her steadily. “It can’t not be there. I'm alive, aren’t I?”

“Yes,” Adam agrees, squeezing her hands again and looking down at them. “But your battery. It’s like it’s dead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments speed my writing process considerably ;) also come talk to me [on tumblr](http://cabeswatersbf.tumblr.com)


	7. as he journeyed fell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter:  
> "Adam shakes his head, and the uncertainty in his eyes chisels a hole in her carefully constructed calm. “Your energy is just...not there.”  
> Blue wants to stamp her foot in frustration. She visualizes her shields, imagines dropping them to let Adam in, to give some of her unending battery to power his magic. Nothing happens, and Adam watches her steadily. “It can’t not be there. I'm alive, aren’t I?”  
> “Yes,” Adam agrees, squeezing her hands again and looking down at them. “But your battery. It’s like it’s dead.”  
> -  
> This chapter:  
> The gang find out what's going on with Blue, meet some colorful characters, eat some spicy food, go all Southwestern Gothic, and get increasingly more worried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm soooooo sorry for how long this took me to update, gang. I've been working on this chapter for months here and there and not just sitting down and committing to finishing it until the last couple of weeks. BUT! You'll notice the predicted chapter count has jumped up again; I actually have the whole rest of the fic lain out now instead of just half-assedly dreamt up, so in theory it should be easier for me to keep writing and update sooner. Plus, I'm back at school and internship, sooooo...gotta love that excuse for procrastination!
> 
> Anyway, thanks for sticking with me and I hope you enjoy! This one was real fun to write.
> 
> PS - reminder this is not TRK compliant!

She doesn’t have much choice but to call home, after that.

They’re like an unsettled, spooked herd as they head back to the SUV, Gansey’s hand curled around Blue’s hip. She doesn’t have the heart to shake him off, because alongside the exhaustion is a sense of dread that reminds her too much of all the times in her life she’d rather forget.

They all sit down in the car, fractured ley line momentarily forgotten, and Blue takes her phone out of her bag with numb fingers, and presses the speed dial for home. Calla picks up this time, and Blue tries to keep her voice normal. “Hi.”

“What’s wrong?” Calla demands. “Don’t tell me you got yourself arrested for trespassing somewhere. You’re paying your own bail.”

Apparently she’d failed at the sounding normal thing. She gets right to it, because Calla will cut through any bullshit in half a second. “What does it mean if Adam can’t feel my energy?”

“Define can’t.”

Blue makes a frustrated noise, and Gansey shoots her yet another worried look from the driver’s seat. “When I put my hands on his shoulders to give him more power, nothing happened. He couldn’t feel me.”

“Are you sure you’re not blocking him out?” Calla asks sharply.

“I'm not,” Blue protests. “I’d know if I was.”

Calla makes a displeased noise. “Put me on speaker.”

Blue does, dutifully, casting a vaguely apologetic look around at the rest of them. “Okay.”

“What aren’t you telling me?” Calla asks, static-crackly voice tight with worry and suspicion. None of them say anything, waiting for Blue to take the lead, and when she doesn’t, Gansey rests his fingers on her wrist.

“Blue,” he murmurs.

“Damn it, _talk_ , one of you,” Calla snaps. “That’s our _daughter_ you have there. There’s more than one way to de-testicle a man – ”

“God, Calla,” Blue says, pressing her knuckles to her eyes until she sees fuzzy sparks. She’s too tired for this, and too scared; it reminds her of everything she’d felt when they found out the third sleeper was awake. “I’ll tell you, but you have to promise not to freak out.”

Calla does not promise, which is for the best, because by the end of Blue’s explanation she’s got Maura and Jimi and even Gwenllian on the other lines and they’re all talking (or singing, in Gwenllian’s case) over each other in increasing volume. Blue curls up in the passenger seat and wraps her arms around herself, listening to her family’s mounting worry, and takes deep breaths to swallow her fear.

\---

The only thing that keeps Maura and Calla from vaulting onto the next flight headed west is Blue’s solemn promise to go immediately to see a distant relative – someone’s cousin’s great-aunt’s sister, or something, Blue lost track of the explanation – in Crestone, a four-hour drive south, in order to get a better diagnosis of what kind of spiritual malady Blue might be facing.

“Like a witch doctor, or some shit?” Ronan mutters, and starts obnoxiously humming the song until Blue reaches back to smack him hard on the leg, in no mood to deal with it.

“That’s racist. And _appropriative_ ,” Blue snaps, and to his credit, Ronan shuts up without anything further. “They’re just psychic, like my family.”

“I'm sure they’ll be able to help,” Gansey assures all of them, relentlessly optimistic as always, and lays his hand on Blue’s knee for a moment before moving to start the car.

“Sorry to have to take such a detour,” Blue mutters miserably, reaching for her nearly empty water bottle; she can’t seem to drink enough to quench her thirst.

“Not at all,” Gansey declares. “I'm delighted to visit Crestone. It’s on my list. The population is less than two hundred people and yet there are two dozen different religious centers. It draws truth seekers. Clearly, very holy ground.”

Blue laughs a little, although the sound is a bit brittle. She adores Gansey so much in this moment that it takes the edge off of her unease. “You’re such a nerd.”

Gansey smiles as he pulls back onto the road that will lead them back to the highway. “Take a rest, Blue. We’ll be there soon.”

\---

Blue sleeps the entire drive without making the conscious decision to, and wakes groggy and unfocused to Ronan’s derisive tone. “I thought you said this place was special. It’s a fucking ghost town.”

Blue blinks a few times to clear her eyes and looks out the window, finding a street lined with a dozen old-west-style two-story buildings, rundown enough that paint and wood are peeling from their faces in equal measure. Blue half expects to see horses tied to posts in front of the buildings and people walking around with spurred boots and cowboy hats, but the only sign of life is a couple of nondescript men replacing a window at the general store.

“I mentioned that it has a small population,” Gansey replies, unbothered. “The main activity is in the spiritual retreat centers in the Sangre de Cristo range nearby. Oh, good, Blue, you’re awake. I'm not entirely sure which of these businesses is the one we’re looking for.”

“The one that says psychic, probably,” Blue says, yawning so wide that her jaw pops.

“Well, yes,” Gansey says, glancing out with a furrowed brow. “Therein lies the issue.”

Blue rubs at her eyes and looks out the window again. The words 'Psychic Readings' are advertised in the windows of half a dozen storefronts. “Oh.”

Gansey parks and they all get out of the car, Blue coughing a little at the dust the wheels have stirred up. The lack of tree cover is shocking after the miles of aspens and pines in the northern part of the state; it’s hard to believe they’re in the same geographical area. If she weren’t terrified about whatever is happening with her energy, she’d be busy drinking in her first flavor of the southwest.

The boys are looking around like they’re not sure what to do next. Gansey’s busy fiddling with his phone, trying to get more information about the businesses around them. Blue rolls her eyes and walks over to the men repairing the window. “Howdy. We’re looking for, um – ” She wracks her tired brain for the name Maura had given her. “Denise?”

The younger man with the hammer looks at her blankly, but his older friend takes off his cap and wipes sweat from his brow with an old checkered handkerchief, nodding. “Dee? Oh, sure. Right down the end of the road there.” He points down at the other end of the street. “Orange paint, lots of plants, you can’t miss it.”

Blue thanks the man and waves Gansey, Ronan, and Adam over, and they follow her down the dusty street to the shop the man had indicated. It’s an old adobe building with a fresher coat of paint than the rest of the street, a shocking orange that rivals the Pig. Succulents of all sizes trail from the window boxes, and huge aloe plants nestled in a bed of red stones line the walkway to the screen door. A sign above the door proclaims the place _Agave_ , with a smaller, hand-written sign giving further information below: _Spiritual Healing and Coffee_.

Ronan snorts and Gansey elbows him in the side. Blue pushes open the screen door, and the scents of rising bread and cinnamon and espresso make her stomach immediately growl. The cozy little coffee shop is decorated with vibrant paintings of desert scenes, lone cacti and sensuous mountains and long stretching rays of sun over sand. Behind the counter is a college-aged girl with a half-shaved head and lavender hair, her elbow propped on the register as she reads a book.

“Um, hi,” Blue says, and the girl looks up, apparently startled to see customers. “We’re looking for Denise – Dee?”

She opens her mouth to reply, but just then there’s movement behind an archway on the other side of a small room, and a broad woman pushes through a beaded curtain. She’s at least 6’4”, with delicate features and bright brown eyes and hair that's curled up in a number of complicated braids and pinned into place on top of her head. Her dress is a gauzy sand-colored thing that brushes over bare feet. She doesn't look a day over 50, with fine crow's lines that compliment her expression as she smiles at Blue.

“My word, is that Maura’s child? How on earth did you get so grown, girl?” Her voice is deep and soft, with an elusive accent that seems like several blended together. She bustles forward and takes Blue’s hand between her broad brown ones, squeezing once, and Blue offers her a hesitant smile. Dee returns it, then turns to the girl behind the counter. “Indy, would you grab us a pitcher of that chai you brewed up, _mija_? Come on back, all of you.”

Blue glances back at Gansey with raised eyebrows, and he gives her an encouraging smile. They follow Dee back through the beaded curtain, down a blessedly cool hallway, and into another room. Blue had expected something like the reading room at home, all draped fabrics and iconography that’s more for the clients than for the psychics, but instead they’re in a small office with a desk and computer across from a brown leather couch and armchair, and more of the same artwork. Blue and Gansey sit down on the couch, while Adam stands near a bookshelf, looking at the titles, and Ronan leans against the wall next to the door, arms crossed.

Dee settles herself into the chair across from them and pushes a plate across the coffee table. “Have some cornmeal biscuits.” Blue immediately grabs one and takes a bite, eager to soothe her growling stomach, which has no right to be as hungry as it is after the big lunch she’d had. Gansey follows suit politely, and makes an appreciative noise at the flavor. The biscuits are earthy and good and clearly homemade, and Blue passes one over to Adam to try too. Ronan just raises an eyebrow at her when she offers him one.

The barista girl comes by a moment later with a jug of iced tea and some glasses, and she winks at Blue when she sets it down. Blue brushes crumbs from her lips self-consciously, blushing a little, and busies herself with pouring a glass of tea, which is unexpectedly spicy yet soothing in the heat.

“Now,” Dee says, settling herself back in her chair with her own glass of tea. “Tell me all about what’s got your mamas in a tizzy.”

Blue presses her lips together. Part of her still wants to deny there’s anything wrong, even though she can feel the way something’s off within her, and she’s not quite sure how to describe it to someone who’s essentially a stranger.

Dee seems to pick up on this, because she slaps a hand against her thigh and shakes her head. “Rushing right into things. How rude!” She looks from Gansey and Blue to Adam and Ronan, meeting each of their eyes. “My name’s Dee Dee Ramón, no relation to the punk rocker. You can call me Dee if you like. I'm pleased to help you; any kin of Maura and Calla and Persephone are kin of mine.” She grows somber, leaning forward a little. “I'm very sorry for your loss, by the way, _hija_. Persephone was a true gem. I'm sure you all miss her very much.”

Blue’s eyes burn a little and she just nods. Luckily, Dee moves on quickly. “And who are the rest of these merry men?”

Gansey takes the reigns in introducing each of them; Adam and Ronan always seem happy to let him take the lead when talking to new people. “How long have you lived in Crestone?” he asks politely when he’s finished. The fervor in his eyes lets Blue know he’ll be happy to have a spirited discussion with her about the place in detail later on.

Dee waves her hand. “Oh, ages, ages.”

“This your shop?” Ronan asks abruptly.

“It sure is,” Dee agrees, not at all put off by his brusque tone. “Used to just be spiritual healing, but now it’s tummy healing as well. Everyone needs a little more coffee and baked goods in their lives, in my opinion.” She grins a little, showing off a missing front tooth that looks so natural on her that it almost seems like a cosmetic choice rather than an orthodontic mishap.

“Just yours?” Ronan presses.

“Just me and Indy,” Dee agrees.

“Is she your daughter?” Blue asks.

“Close enough to it.”

“Who’s Daniel, then?” Ronan asks pointedly, jutting his chin to the wall, where Blue spots a couple of diplomas issued to Daniel Ramón.

“Ronan,” Gansey warns, but Dee just throws back her head and laughs.

“I've outgrown him,” she says, eyes sparkling, and she winks at Ronan. He stares back at her in suspicious confusion. “Think on it long enough, honey, you might figure it out. Now then, Blue. Tell me what’s going on.”

Blue hesitantly outlines her symptoms, with Dee nodding and stirring at her chai as she listens.

“Maura told me a bit about the powers you’ve been dealing with. Very impressive. Very dangerous.” They’re all silent in response, which seems to confirm whatever Dee’s thinking, because she nods again and raps her knuckles decisively against the wood of the coffee table. “Sounds like you’ve picked up an energy gremlin.”

It takes a second for the words to track, and then all Blue can do is stare at her. “A _what_?”

“That sounds fucking made up,” Ronan interjects sourly.

“Everything in this amazing world is made up, sweet child,” Dee agrees. “And that’s not the technical term, although these things don’t tend to have technical terms, anyway.”

Gansey’s hand touches Blue’s, lacing his fingers through hers, and she squeezes back hard. “Please explain,” Gansey requests softly.

Dee rolls her shoulders back and seems to mull over her response carefully before she speaks. “Whatever mess you were part of a couple months back displaced a whole mountain of energy. Think of it like a wave.”

“That’s what damaged the line,” Adam murmurs.

Dee nods in agreement. “Too much all at once, it had nowhere to go. But now, you’re fixing it, and just as the moon shifts the tide, the power’s ebbing back.” She rolls her hand back and then forward, like a wave washing into shore, and then makes her hand into a fist and clasps it to her heart. “Bringing with it all kinds of things.”

“Things,” Blue repeats. Her skin is shivery over her muscles, and she scratches at her neck as a bead of sweat trails down beneath the collar of her shirt.

“Things,” Dee repeats. “Drawn to the source of the cacophony.” She gestures at all four of them. “And what did they find, but a very convenient, bountiful energy source, free for the taking.” Blue’s stomach twists unpleasantly, her hand gripping tightly at Gansey’s.

“Like a – a – _leech_?”

“I think I prefer the term ‘gremlin’,” Gansey says faintly.

“Are you saying Blue’s being – _possessed_ by something?” Adam demands, suddenly loud in the somber atmosphere. Blue looks over at him and finds him standing stock still by the bookcase, lips pressed tightly together.

Dee shakes her head. “Nothing that invasive. More of a leech, like Blue said. It’s hooked into her energy, but it’s not trying to take her over.” Dee leans forward and touches Blue’s knee. “That’s what all the excess sleep and hunger and thirst are, _hija_. It’s taking all your reserves for its own. And,” she adds gently, “it is possible for it to take too much for you to come back from.”

Fear is a choking weight around Blue’s neck. “How do I get rid of it?” She hates how faint her voice sounds. Her head seems like it’s thick with acrid smoke, making it more and more of a feat to hold herself upright.

“I’ll help you,” Dee assures her. “This isn’t the first time I've seen something like this. All you need to do right now is lay low. Think of it like a particularly nasty flu. You need to conserve your energy.”

“Lay low? That’s your advice?” Ronan snaps. “This leech thing is draining her life away and you’re prescribing fucking _bed rest_?”

“Ronan,” Gansey warns again, with a bit more steel in his tone. He leans forward, looking intently at Dee. “It does seem like time is of the essence. Do you have an idea of it will take to fix this?”

Dee studies Gansey closely, amber eyes searching for something in his face, before sitting back a little. “I only need one night for prep. You’re lucky the moon’s waning.”

Blue closes her eyes, trying to be relieved at that, but the way the couch seems to spin beneath her makes it difficult. She holds onto Gansey’s hand to keep herself grounded. 

“Can we help?” Adam’s asking. “I've got some power. I don’t know if it would make a difference.”

“We can certainly discuss it,” Dee says kindly. “But right now I think Blue could use a lie-down. Y’all are welcome to stay in our spare room, although I'm afraid there’s not a whole lot of space.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Gansey says. “I'm sure we’ll be fine.”

“Follow me.” Blue hears Dee stand, and so she tries to get up too, except the floor moves violently beneath her feet and she staggers, knocking a glass to the floor with a loud crash.

“Blue!” call at least three different voices, but a wave of dizziness is swallowing her whole, making the edges of her vision crackle and dissolve, and then she’s slipping away.

\---

Hazy purple light eats slowly at the edges of Blue’s unconsciousness, drawing her out of the darkness, although she has to fight every step of the way. She twitches leaden muscles into life and scrubs the grittiness away from her eyes, and when she opens them, she finds she’s facing a window that lets in the sleepy light of the quarter moon and desert stars, seemingly miles of empty darkness below them. There’s a brief flare of panic and confusion that’s tempered when she turns her head to find Adam sitting cross-legged on an armchair beside the bed, watching her with faintly concealed worry.

“What time is it?”

Adam checks his watch. “Close to eight. You slept four hours. How do you feel?”

Blue scrubs roughly at face, trying to wake herself up more. “Like I'm really tired of having my energy hijacked. Where are the others?”

“Ronan just dragged Gansey off to get some dinner.”

Blue’s fingers run brusquely through her hair, tugging at the wild strands. “So you’re on the deathbed watch?”

Adam, having had more than enough practice dealing with cranky awakenings, just looks at her calmly. “We wanted to make sure you didn’t wake up alone.”

Blue can’t exactly be bitchy at that, so instead she pushes herself up into a sitting position, glad that Adam doesn’t try to help her. The dizziness seems to have passed, and she’s once again ravenously hungry, which is probably what woke her. The idea of passing in and out of consciousness only to appease the leech that has its jaws clamped around her energy makes her skin feel like it’s itching off her body, and her stomach roils unpleasantly. “Bathroom?”

Adam nods and gestures toward the door. “Just down the hall.”

Blue finds her way to the small bathroom, barely noticing the garish cacti décor in favor of bracing her hands against the sink and trying not to throw up. She looks into the mirror, trying to see some hint of the poison inside that’s making her into a meal, but she only sees herself, looking shitty and exhausted with deep bruise-like hollows beneath her eyes, her skin strangely pale. She leans down and splashes water on her face, cupping her hands to drink some until both the nausea and the tightness in her throat have mostly subsided, and then she pees and washes her hands and splashes her face again. She badly wants a shower, but she feels too annoyingly weak to get through it standing up, and so she tables the idea for a little while and shuffles back to the bedroom.

Adam’s still sitting, waiting for her, and he offers her her phone, which must have been taken from her pocket – her boots had also been removed, but otherwise, her clothes had been all left in place, because her boys know better than to try to make her comfortable while she’s not conscious to consent to it – and Blue accepts it silently and sits back down on the bed to call home.

Dee had apparently called and given an update, because Maura is all composure and reassurance, even though Blue knows she’s probably terrified and frustrated that she can’t be here. Hearing her mother’s voice makes a few of the tears work their way free, and when Adam comes to quietly sit on the bed next to her, Blue allows herself to lean heavily against him. When she ends the call a few minutes later, she holds the phone in both of her hands against her chest like she imagines Maura is probably doing back home, and presses her forehead to Adam’s shoulder, breathing until she’s sure the tears have finished.

Adam strokes his hand gently up and down her back a few more times. “Hungry?”

“Yeah,” Blue agrees bitterly, nausea once again jostling her stomach, but she gets up with Adam and follows him back to the front of the house.

The café from this afternoon has been transformed into a dining area, a wooden table with bench seats pulled into the center of the room and set with a tablecloth, dishes and silverware, and a gold candle burning at its center. Gansey and Ronan are sitting close to each other at the table, but Gansey jumps up when he sees Blue and Adam enter the room. He comes around the table to them and Blue lets him pull her into a tight hug, then pushes him back so she can sit down. Ronan gives her an assessing look, then goes back to tearing apart a piece of brown bread.

“Blue! Are you hungry? There’s chili. It’s quite good,” Gansey tells her; Blue just nods, too tired to protest his mothering. He picks up the bowl in front of her and goes behind the counter to a small kitchenette that’s part of the coffee bar, where Dee’s daughter is stirring a pot on a small stove. She takes the bowl from Gansey and shoos him away, and a moment later, comes over with two filled bowls and a plate containing a few slices of thick brown bread, setting them down in front of Adam and Blue.

Blue’s mouth is already watering from the scents of cooking garlic and onion permeating the room, and she murmurs a quiet “Thank you,” and then dunks her bread into the chili and takes a bite. She hums appreciatively at the flavor, her tastebuds burning approvingly at the liberal use of cayenne. “Mm, this _is_ good.”

“Spicy,” Adam agrees approvingly. “Surprised you could handle it, Gansey.”

Gansey grimaces a little, taking a sip from his glass, and Ronan chimes in with, “He couldn’t. Needed a lot of milk.”

“It was still delicious,” Gansey declares, clearly concerned about offending one of their hosts.

Indy, who’s taken a seat beside Blue at the table and is making quick work of her own bowl of chili, just laughs. “Sorry ‘bout that. I grew up on melt your tongue spicy food, so my measurement’s a bit off when I cook for others.”

“I love it,” Blue tells her, happy to have a tame topic of conversation. She wraps one hand around her bowl, enjoying the heat. “My mom always said if you’re cooking with pepper, don’t half ass it.”

“Smart woman,” Indy says, grinning at her. Her purple bangs have flopped over her eyes, and she shoves them back to see Blue better. “We haven’t really been introduced proper. I'm Indigo.”

Blue’s first thought, borne of years of being called Teal and Sapphire and a myriad of other uninspired names by her peers, is that this girl is making fun of her, and she scowls a little before realizing that she’s serious. Ronan’s snickering across the table, and she kicks out at him, making Gansey wince when she catches his shin instead. “Oh. Cool.” She immediately feels herself blush, and concentrates back on her chili, wolfing down a bite so she has a minute to think of what to say while she chews. “You sound Southern.”

“Georgia,” Indigo agrees. “Y’all are from Virginia, right? Henrietta?”

“Yes,” Gansey says, pleased as ever to talk about his great love. “Have you been before?”

“No, but Dee’s told me about it. Sounds pretty magical.” She gives a lopsided grin, and Blue realizes she’s making a very bad pun, which is obnoxious and hopelessly endearing. “You’ve been traveling all over, though?”

They make small talk about the places they’ve been through, Gansey carrying the conversation in his role as the most socially competent out of all of them. Beyond Blue’s hunger and exhaustion and fear, she’s strangely flustered, although she doesn’t have the brainpower to sort out why, and she focuses on her food until she’s scraping the bottom of her bowl with the crust of her bread and then sitting back with a satisfied sigh.

There’s soft footsteps from the hall, and Dee appears, a basket filled what looks like cut pieces of a large saguaro under one arm. “I'm ready for you out back, Adam.”

Adam nods and picks up his bowl, bringing it over to the sink, and Gansey stands as well. “May I join you? I'd like to understand the process.”

“Sure, although this isn’t gonna be the interesting piece of it,” Dee replies. “Blue, I’d recommend you sit this one out; we might accidentally draw on your energy, and that’s the last thing we need right now.”

Blue sighs and rests her arms on the table, nodding. Gansey raises his eyebrows at Ronan in question, but Ronan shakes his head, and Gansey and Adam follow Dee back through the house. Indigo takes Blue’s empty bowl from her and brings it over to the sink, adding it to the pile of dishes. Blue thinks about offering to do them, then considers the fact that she can barely stand up right now and grudgingly revises that idea. Ronan’s typing on his phone, probably talking to Matthew or Aurora, and Blue closes her eyes, resting for a moment. She knows she should probably go lie back down, but she’s going to avoid being an invalid as long as possible.

There’s a clink of glass on wood, and Blue opens her eyes to find that Indigo’s brought out small bowls of ice cream for each of them. “Homemade Mexican hot chocolate gelato,” she tells them, and Blue licks her lips and grabs one of the offered spoons.

“Are you training to be a cook, or something?” Blue says, after taking a bite and closing her eyes in bliss at the rich flavor of cinnamon and chocolate. “Because everything you make is amazing.”

Indigo ducks her head and grins, turning her spoon around in her fingers. “Thanks. It’s just a hobby. I was a line cook for a while when I first came out west. Now Dee’s given me full reign of the café and kitchen, so I get to experiment a bit. It’s fun.”

Blue, who can’t cook to save her own or anyone else’s life and doesn’t really have any desire to, doesn’t relate, but she nods anyway. “So’s that what you do all day?”

“Nah, I also take classes at the junior college up in Buena Vista a couple times a week. Getting the G.E.’s out of the way and all that shit. I'm hoping to get into CU Boulder; they’ve got a great fine arts program.”

“What kind of art?” Blue asks, taking another bite of ice cream.

Indigo gestures around at the vibrant landscapes hung on the walls, and Blue’s eyes widen. “You did these? They’re good.”

Indigo grins again, a dimple appearing in her right cheek. “Thank Bob Ross.”

Blue wrinkles her nose. “Who?”

“You know, the painter?” Indigo says. Blue shakes her head. “PBS? The eighties? Happy little trees?”

“Sargent didn’t know television was a thing that existed until she was in high school,” Ronan comments, not looking up from his phone, and Blue kicks him under the table, successfully this time. He shoots her a glare.

Indigo waves her hand. “Well, this one foster home I was at had his entire collection, so I binged that shit, and found out I liked painting things better than punching things.” 

“More productive, anyway,” Blue agrees, studying Indigo a little more closely. With how calm and easy-going she seems, it’s hard to imagine her getting angry enough to throw punches, but then again, Blue’s seen Ronan’s own proclivity for violence fade as well with time.

“Enough about me,” Indigo says, getting herself another big scoop of ice cream. “I'm dying of curiosity about y’all, honestly. Is it too forward to ask if you’ve got magic like Dee does?”

“Well,” Blue says consideringly, then pauses. It’s still something she’s trying to figure out how to define herself, although she’s definitely more inclined to say yes than she used to be. “Kinda. My family’s psychic, but I'm not. I can reflect and amplify energy.” She frowns, scraping at the bottom of her bowl. “Which is why this thing’s attached to me.”

“Dee told me. But she’ll be able to help, don’t worry,” Indigo says, with a confidence Blue can’t feel past her own fear. Indigo reaches over and lightly touches her fingers to Blue’s knuckles. “She’s dealt with way creepier stuff than a little energy demon.”

“Demon?” Blue asks, mouth going dry, and Ronan looks up sharply. “She called it a gremlin.”

“Oh,” Indigo says, and Blue doesn’t miss her minor wince, which makes the bottom drop from Blue’s stomach. “Right, that’s what I meant.”

“No it’s not,” Ronan snaps. “Say what you really mean.” 

“Ronan, don’t be a shitbag,” Blue says reflexively, but her heart is pounding fast.

Indigo shifts uncomfortably, but meets Blue’s gaze, her dark eyes apologetic. “It would be more accurate to call it a demon, of sorts. Have you...dealt with them?”

Blue thinks of the creeping, ugly darkness of her latest nightmares; how it echoes the tar that had bled through her veins in the presence of the third sleeper. Abruptly, it’s too much; the aftertaste of the ice cream is sickening, her stomach is sour. She stands abruptly from the table and then has to grip the edge of it as dizziness overtakes her again. 

“Blue?” Indigo says quietly, reaching out for her, but Ronan’s already up and around the table, catching hold of Blue’s elbow.

“Fuck off,” Ronan tells Indigo, sans vitriol, and Blue’s too weak and afraid to tell him off. She waits until she’s steady again, then glances back at Indigo, taking a breath. 

“I’d like to take a shower. Or a bath, maybe, if I could.” 

“Sure,” Indigo says, standing up as well. “I’ll get you a towel.” She disappears down the hallway, and while she’s gone, Blue brushes Ronan’s hand off her arm, although she doesn’t tell him to back off, and he doesn’t, standing sentinel-like beside her.

Indigo comes back and presses a gray towel into Blue’s hands, worrying at her lip rings with her teeth. “Use anything in there you want, we don’t mind.” 

“Thanks,” Blue says quietly, then steadies herself again and heads slowly back down the hall to the bathroom. Ronan follows her, then stops in the doorway as she starts the water. “I’ve got this part,” she says tiredly. 

Ronan’s looking thunderous, which means he’s worrying, and Blue’s so sick of being an object of worry. “I’m getting Gansey.”

Blue sighs. “Ronan.”

He narrows his eyes at her. “Think you can guarantee that that you won’t pass out and drown yourself in the water?”

She glares back, but the answer is she can’t, and he huffs as if to say _told you so_ and disappears a moment later. Blue focuses on getting the water the right temperature, feeling very heavy as she kneels on the floor beside the tub, and when there’s a soft knock at the still open door she just nods in acquiescence. The door closes, and a moment later, Gansey’s presence is settling down beside her, his hand lightly touching the space between her shoulders. 

Blue’s head rests heavily against the cool porcelain of the edge of the tub, and she rolls her head so she can see Gansey’s somber face. “I think I need some help with this,” she admits in a whisper, and Gansey brushes his fingers down her spine, achingly gentle. 

“I can do that,” he agrees. Together, with Blue directing and Gansey moving carefully, he helps her get undressed and slowly eased into the water, his fingers staying laced with hers once she’s fully in the tub. Another time, she might feel shy about being naked with him, although she’s firmly of the opinion that bodies are bodies and people shouldn’t be weird about it, but she’s too exhausted now to be the least bit self conscious. As usual, his presence gives her quiet comfort, and she soaks in it just like she’s soaking in the warm water, pretending that it has the power to keep her safe from the evil holding onto her. She’s desperate to know more about what Indigo was saying, about how bad this really is, about what the ritual will be like, but at the same time she wants to reject all of it and give into the rest that feels impossible to resist. 

She falls asleep while Gansey’s gently working shampoo out of her hair, and barely wakes up when he nudges her to keep her head out of the water. Getting out of the bath and back into the bedroom is a blur of movements that are far too difficult, Gansey doing most of the heavy lifting: holding her up while he dries her off with the towel and half-carrying her to the room and helping her change into soft pajamas. She collapses into the bed without having a choice not to, and as Gansey gets in next to her and curls tightly around her, she sends out a quiet, formless prayer that they'll be able to fix this tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment letting me know what you thought! Dee is based on a real life woman I know who is kickass, and Indigo comes from a 'verse I've been co-writing for the past year. Blue needs not only more girl friends but also a girlfriend IMO soooo.... :)


	8. tireless to applaud, it surged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously: Blue, plagued with a demon that's latched onto her energy, steadily worsens as it tries to drain her dry.  
> This chapter: The ritual face off with the entity, with the help of her boys, Dee, and Indigo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again...apologies on the forever wait. I'm finishing up grad school, soooo....I do know how this story ends, and I do still intend to finish it, dammit. A lot needed to happen in this chapter so it took a long time to write, and it's also been hard to continue to operate in my own non-canonical verse, but as long as y'all are into it so am I! Next chapter we'll be back to the "road" part of the roadtrip. Let me know what you think!

The most horrific nightmares yet. She’s crushed alive, ripped apart, dropped from a great height. She sees the corpses of everyone she’s ever loved. She sees memories she’s buried so deeply that they might as well have been dreams. She sobs and screams and runs from something she can’t see, and she never stops running, and she never gets away.

 

_12:04 pm_

Flash of hazy blue in the corner of her eyes, squinted to slits against painful sunlight. Adam beside her, sky-colored cup held out to Gansey, who guides it to her lips, his hand cradled behind her head. She wants to push him away and take it for herself, but her blood is lead and her eyes close before she’s finished, water spilling from the corners of her mouth. She coughs, nearly choking, and then falls back, exhausted, color fading away.

 

_3:25 pm_

**Adam Parrish - 3:25 pm**  
 _Still asleep?_  
  


**Gansey – 3:26 pm**  
_Still asleep. Will you be back soon?_  
  


**Adam Parrish – 3:45 pm**   
_One more stop. Someone Dee knows, she says they’ll have the weirder ingredients we need, whatever that means._   
  


**Gansey III – 3:45 pm**  
_Good luck._  
  


**Adam Parrish – 3:51 pm**  
_She’ll be alright, Gans._  
  


_5:32 pm_

“It’s gonna be like a trance, Dee said.” Adam’s softly accented voice, a muted murmur. The sound of shifting cloth, ceramic touching wood. “Might be something you could help with.”

A quiet scoff.

“Subconscious forces are sort of your forte, Ronan.”

“Not lately.” It’s a low mutter, almost indistinguishable from the background noise, the rush of blood in Blue’s head. “Not anymore.”

Quiet for nearly a minute, then the barest audible hint of lips brushing skin, maybe lips brushing lips. “You can,” Adam whispers. “All of us together. You can.”

 

_6:45 pm_

“Blue. Blue, please.”

The voice has been going on a while. The shaking, too, a little earthquake of her body. Is he shaking her, or is her body shaking herself?

She manages to get her eyes open, and the relief in Gansey’s face is blurry, but distinct. She tries to speak, but she barely manages something guttural and formless, and Gansey’s brow furrows deeper.

“I know. You’ll be alright soon,” Gansey promises, fingers on her forehead, smoothing back hair. “It’s time. Can I help you up?”

Blue’s pride, strung out and bedraggled as it is, dictates that she needs to try to get up herself, even though her limbs feel disconnected from the rest of her, so heavy that just sitting up a bare few inches is agonizingly difficult. She does it, though, then gives in and leans against Gansey, who maneuvers her carefully up on her feet. All her weight is on him, but he manages to help pretend she can walk anyhow, his arm tight around her waist. It takes them long minutes just to make it out of the guest room, but Gansey murmurs soft, continuous encouragement, and they get to the back door, finally.

Blue has to hide her face in Gansey’s neck when they first breach the outdoors. Just the smallest hint of dry wind on her skin, the scent of burning herbs, the burst of orange on the horizon that is the sun setting, makes her whole body ache and twist, painful down to her core. She grits her teeth and sucks in a breath, then forces herself to look at the scene before her. 

A garden of huge, impossible succulents sprawls ahead, too many colors and shapes for Blue to track. Tiny flickers here and there suggest the movement of lizards, small desert hares, bluejays and cactus wrens. Adam and Dee and Indy are sitting on a woven blanket on the ground, various herbs and crystals and stones spread around them, Ronan across from them, unease clear in his posture. Gansey guides Blue to the blanket and helps her lay down, and the second she’s prone again, it’s nearly impossible for her to keep her eyes open. She can hear Dee explaining the ritual, can feel Gansey holding her hand, can sense them all around her, but it’s as if she’s behind a layer of heavy stone, detached.

“Blue.” Dee’s voice, gentle hand cupping her cheek. “Do you consent?”

“Yes,” Blue whispers, and then she’s gone again.

 

\--

 

_Where_ – ?

Darkness, all around. The tar black of dead night, of enclosed space. Water drips, and she knows that noise. Her knees crack against stone, and she knows that feeling.

She kneels in the cave, breathing shallowly. She tests each of her limbs, finding them intact and functional, more functional than they’ve been at all recently. That bolsters her courage a little, knowing that at least now she’s lucid and in control of herself, and it helps her to push herself upright.

She’s had this dream so often.

There’s light ahead, faint, but better than the all-encompassing nothing, the weight pressing in on her, and she trudges toward it, all too aware of what she might find. Every nightmare that’s not simply a play by play of Gansey’s death starts like this, so it’s not a surprise when she stumbles across the body, almost tripping over its legs in the dark.

It’s almost always too dark to see it, but she always knows it’s someone she loves. The difference is that this time there’s enough dim, sickly light that she can make out who it is.

Herself. 

Blue stares unblinkingly down at her own corpse for breathless seconds. It’s wearing her favorite homemade dress, the one that Persephone had contributed one of her shawls to help complete, and the body looks fragile and small and pale in a way that wrenches Blue’s stomach.

“It’s not real,” she says out loud, testing the words in the damp air. But she can’t tear herself away, despite her effort to taking a few hesitant steps forward in the direction she hopes leads to freedom. But it’s one thing to run from the nightmare memory of dead Gansey, knowing that her brain is just forcing her to relive those horrible minutes, and quite another to leave herself behind.

“Is this some kind of metaphor, or something?” she demands beneath her breath, kneeling down carefully beside her mirror self. She wants to address the presence she can sense watching, perversely drinking in her fear; but she knows giving attention to things gives them power, so she just grits her teeth and tries to figure out what to do. It’s very possible this is just a manifestation of the demon, trying to trap her in terror – but her gut, her own magic, tells her something different. This is something more.

Then the dead Blue’s chest rises shallowly with breath, and everything shifts.

Blue breathes out a quiet “oh,” and then she’s using strength she didn’t know she possessed to get her arms beneath the shoulders and knees of her other body and pick them both up from the dirty rock. She’s filled with the desperate need to get both versions of herself to safety, and so she tightens her hold under the unconscious – _not dead_ – body, and continues on in the way she’s been going.

Time has no meaning here, whether that’s because it’s a nightmare or because she’s being influenced by the demon, but it’s not too long before she’s tired, her legs and arms and lungs burning from exertion. When a light appears, it takes her a few moments to even notice it, and another few to make sense of the figure standing behind it.

“ _Ronan_?”

“The one and only.” The ghost light is slung over his shoulder, illuminating the rocky corridor, and he regards her with an inscrutable expression.

She’s so relieved to see him that if she didn’t have her hands full, she’d throw her arms around him. Still: “Are you the real Ronan? Are you really here?”

“Yes, maggot,” he says, so entirely Ronan-like that she believes him immediately, just like she had in the cave with the mirror lake all those months ago. “You think I can’t swing some dream shit, after all the practice?” He lifts the ghost light closer, squinting at her. “What’s that?” He catches sight of the identity of the body in her arms, and his face does something complicated Blue doesn’t understand, the pale light throwing angular shadows across his sharp features. He looks back up at her. “You’re not doing great out there. We need to get you out.”

“Yeah,” Blue agrees, glad he doesn’t suggest leaving this Blue behind. She adjusts her grip a little – the body is disturbingly limp, and hard to keep balanced in her arms – and Ronan reaches out to help. His hands, however, pass right through the solid body, and Blue’s eyes widen, but she finds she’s not surprised. “I have to do it myself. Come on.”

Ronan nods impassively, swinging the light higher and glancing down the corridor of rock. “Christ, I fucking hate caves. Okay. This way?”

“I don’t know,” Blue admits. “I can’t tell which way is right.” Exhaustion sucks at her, and she leans against the wall, closing her eyes briefly.

“Get it together, Sargent,” Ronan commands sharply. “Shut up and listen.”

Blue does. At first, the only thing she can hear is the echo of the hissing whisper that reminds her sickly of the third sleeper, tugging the rope of fear winding through her even tighter.

Ronan shakes the light at her as if to make sure he has her attention. “Not to that shit. _Listen_.”

Blue strains her ears, closing her eyes again to make it easier, and after a few minutes, she hears it. It’s a faint voice, getting stronger the more she focuses on it, and it’s familiar in a specific way. When it clicks, something like relief spills through her: it’s Gansey, using what Blue thinks of as his kingly voice, the one he’d used to wake the bone creatures, the one that’s soft yet imbued with power. He’s repeating her name, over and over again. _Blue. Blue Sargent. Come back, Blue._

She realizes his voice isn’t issuing from either the direction she’d come from, nor the direction she’s been going, but somewhere else entirely. She shuffles toward the sound, getting unconscious Blue higher in her arms, and discovers the crouched shape of a smaller corridor leading off the main one. It seems darker than the rest of the passage, and smells heavily of decay, and the thought of going that way sharpens her fear until it’s nearly dangerous. Still, she’s absolutely certain that’s where Gansey’s voice is coming from. When she glances back at Ronan to tell him, he’s nowhere in sight, but the ghost light is sitting on the ground, giving off an eerie but still comforting glow.

“Okay,” Blue says decisively, and goes back, briefly setting the other Blue down so that she can snag the strap of the light and sling it over one shoulder. When she looks back down, the unconscious Blue has twin tracks of tears streaked down her face, and as Blue watches, a trickle of blood appears beneath one of her nostrils, trickling down to her lips. Blue grimaces as she tastes copper in her own mouth, her heart pounding, and she wipes the smear of blood away with her sleeve. She picks both of her selves up again, urgency eating at her, then takes a deep breath. Carefully, she squeezes them both through the hole, the light revealing muddy rock sloping downward. Down seems like the opposite direction of the way she wants, but she hears Gansey again, clearer this time – _Jane, please. Blue, come back._ – and it pulls her on.

Water drips distantly. Her arms and legs seem to weigh more and more, her back straining with the effort of lifting the body. Something spindly-legged crawls over her foot, and she shudders. She walks for what feels like hours, until her ability to feel time fades away and the only gauge of time she has is the number of steps she’s taking: fifty. Two hundred. Five hundred. Over a thousand. 

She loses count. Her arms and back and legs and lungs and head all ache furiously. The ghost light swings drunkenly as she stops, leaning against the wall of the cavern, desperate for a hint of rest. She doesn’t realize she’s losing her grip on the other Blue until she’s falling to her knees to keep the body from hitting the ground.

_Don’t give up!_

_Don’t give up, Blue!_

_Don’t you dare give up, you hear me?_

One of the voices sounds a lot like Maura, and Blue wonders if she’s trapped down here too, lost again to darkness. The thought sends a distant pulse of panic through her, but she’s too exhausted to really feel it.

They’re both slumped on the ground now, her and her body. Blue’s holding fast to the fabric of the dress, but she can’t bring herself to lift the body again. Consciousness flickers like a candle.

Something tugs at the other Blue. For a woozy second, Blue thinks she’s waking up, but then she feels a heavy breath of putrid air against her neck. Fear and nausea lurch her stomach as she looks down to see a grey, mottled claw reaching out from the darkness behind her, clutching the fabric of the other Blue’s dress right alongside Blue’s own hand. As she watches, it pulls, dragging the body a few inches back, trying to pull it from Blue’s grip.

Blue doesn’t think, just moves. With the last of her remaining strength, she throws a sharp elbow back toward the creature behind her, skin connecting with something damp, sticky. There’s a hiss of air, and then the tunnel around Blue begins to shake, and the thing lets out a demonic screech so loud that Blue’s eardrums threaten to shatter. But Blue’s already up and running, herself held tightly to her chest, pounding across muddy stone that threatens to slip her up. As she runs for her life, a flood of air is violently pushed into her from behind, as if by vast wings beating, and there’s another awful scream that fills Blue with the same horror she recognizes from stumbling across Persephone’s body; kneeling beside Gansey’s.

_You can’t have me!_

Her feet keep moving, and suddenly it’s like the tunnel spins, and instead of traveling downward, the ground is sloping up toward a spot of blinding golden light that gets brighter the further she sprints. The thing grabs at her ankle and she stumbles and kicks back as hard as she can and presses forward, until suddenly she’s spilling out into fresh air, tumbling down onto the earth. When she falls, there’s the curious sensation of continuing to fall - not just into the ground but into the body in her arms.

“ _Blue_!”

“She’s back.”

“Jesus Mary _fuck_.”

There’s a hand on her face, warmth cradling her cheek; another hand is squeezing hers tightly. She rolls to the side, retching; the hand on her face hurriedly moves to her back, rubbing in small circles. Nothing comes up, and so she slumps back onto her back, cracking her eyes open to be greeted with the blinding sight of the uncountable stars above. They wink at her joyously.

“Blue?” Gansey’s voice asks cautiously, she turns her head to see him hovering above her, his hand on her shoulder now. His face is pale and drawn, but it breaks into relief as she blinks at him and exhales slowly.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” he repeats softly. He produces a tissue from somewhere and offers it to her; she wipes at her nose and the tissue comes away bloody. Blue tilts her head and finds Dee kneeling on her other side, eyes closed tightly as her lips shape something wordless. Indigo is behind her, her face tear-streaked, but she gives Blue a shaky smile. Adam is to Dee’s left, his hands pressed to the dirt, exhaustion and relief all over his features.

“Am I right in thinking that was a lot bigger than a fucking ‘ _gremlin’_?” Ronan’s voice demands; he’s next to Gansey, arm folded tightly against his chest.

“I’d say you’re right,” Blue croaks. “Thanks for the light.”

\--

The ritual is tied up soon after that, all of them exhausted. Dee rubs a poultice that smells strongly of eucalyptus and sage between Blue’s eyes, looking down at her. “You had us scared, _mija_ ,” she murmurs, and Blue studies her mutely, deciding to save her questions for later.

Blue calls Maura from the guest room. It takes a while for Blue to calm her down enough to stop her from catapulting herself onto the next plane headed west. But all of the women of 300 Fox Way had been lending their own strength to the ritual, even across the distance, and they’d all known that it had worked. The demon, or whatever that putrid ugliness had been, is well and truly gone; the exhaustion Blue feels now is all natural, not the result of a leech. When she imagines her shields now, she can feel them strong and steady, like a warm hug around her.

There’s celebratory gelato and hot chocolate in the café/kitchen. Gansey sticks close to Blue’s side, his arm looped loosely around her waist. Blue feels like herself again, _finally_ , her spirit whole and unfettered, and she laughs loud and long at the smallest jokes. Adam and Ronan sit across the table from Blue and Gansey, and past the exhaustion on both their faces, she can see their own blatant relief in the casual slump of their shoulders, Adam’s hand lingering on Ronan’s arm when he shoves him back from stealing a spoonful of Adam’s ice cream. Ronan’s foot knocks Blue’s under the table and she sticks her tongue out at him, her eyes sparkling.

After the dishes are cleared away, Ronan and Adam head to the guest room, Adam exhausted from the hour spent channeling energy and Ronan eager to lie down with him. Blue and Gansey share a look, silently agreeing to give them some space alone for a while. They move to a big squishy couch shoved into the corner of the room, Gansey leaning his head on Blue’s shoulder as Blue nurses a cup of Mexican hot chocolate.

Indigo, freshly showered and wrapped in a vibrant yellow robe, comes over hesitantly, and Blue pats the couch next to herself to invite her to take a seat. Indigo does, and their shoulders and knees touch companionably. It’s hard to stay strangers with someone who’s helped to essentially exorcise you, and Indigo gives off a warm familiar energy that reminds Blue of almost everyone at Fox Way.

“Feelin’ good?” Indigo asks softly.

“Mmm,” Blue agrees. The relief is still profound.

“Do you think y’all will head out tomorrow?”

Blue nods. For the first time in days, she feels like she can look forward confidently to the next part of their journey. “We’ve still got a lot of work ahead of us.”

“Adam told me about the work you’ve all been doing on the songlines.” Indigo rubs her fingers contemplatively over the shaved part of her head. “And about your friend.”

“Noah,” Blue murmurs. Gansey squeezes her hand. “Yeah. We’re going to get him back.” Indigo shifts a little, a frown fleetingly appearing on her face, and Blue nudges at her shoulder with her own. “What?”

Indigo looks at Blue, her dark eyes solemn. She worries her lip for a moment, the ring in her lip flashing silver in the dim light. “Are you…sure? That that’s what’s meant to be?”

Blue’s breath stills in her throat. It feels a bit like Indigo’s stuck at the core of her, at the doubt that’s been growing since she was back home in Henrietta and Maura was looking at her in the same way, saying, _You might not find what you mean to, Blue._

“Of course it is,” Blue says fervently, her brain moving forward heedless of the ache in her heart. “He’s part of us. He’s supposed to be with us.”

Indigo studies her seriously. She looks like she’s going to speak, but then thinks better of it, and instead squeezes Blue’s shoulder and gets to her feet. “I'm gonna head to bed.”

“Sleep well,” Blue says automatically, and looks away as Indigo leaves. She and Gansey sit in silence for close to an hour before heading to the guestroom, and despite her exhaustion, Blue doesn’t sleep for a long while.


End file.
